The One-Two Punch of Cancer Therapies Plus Senolytics

There is considerable enthusiasm in the cancer research community regarding the prospects for improved patient outcomes via the use of senolytics to clear senescent cells from tissues. It seems fairly clear that an increased burden of senescent cells results from the use of traditional cancer therapies, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and that this is most likely the cause of a large fraction of the greater risk of age-related disease and shorter remaining life expectancy in cancer survivors. Undergoing those forms of cancer therapy is literally a matter of signing up for accelerated aging - and still the preferable alternative, of course, when the other option is death by runaway cell growth and metastasis. It seems plausible that senolytic therapies can be applied after cancer treatment has ended to mitigate the long-term consequences of that treatment. There are more senescent cells, induced by treatment, and effective senolytics will remove a large fraction of those cells. This is straightforward. What is less straightforward is whether (and in what circumstances) it will be helpful or harmful to use senolytics alongside cancer treatments, at the same time. For some cancers and stages of cancer, this may dramatically improve outcomes. We might think of the forms of leukemia that appear to create senescent cells in order to produce a more favorable growth environment, for example. In other cases, it might not be so helpful, but time will tell. Targeting senesc...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs