Clearance of Senescent Cells Reverses the Peripheral Neuropathy Caused by Chemotherapy

A primary goal of chemotherapy is to force cancerous cells into programmed cell death or cellular senescence. Cellular senescence is a state of growth arrest that should normally be triggered by exactly the sort of damage and dysfunction exhibited by cancer cells, but cancer is characterized by a mutation-induced ability to bypass those restrictions. Chemotherapy remains the primary approach to cancer therapy, but chemotherapeutic agents are still at best only marginally discriminating. Treating cancer with chemotherapy has always been a fine balance between harming the cancer and harming the patient. Even in the best of outcomes, it is well established that chemotherapy causes lasting damage. There are many unpleasant, lingering side-effects, and in fact chemotherapy lowers remaining life expectancy significantly. It is about as bad as a smoking habit when it comes to its effects on later mortality. With the growing understanding of the role of senescent cells in aging, it has become clear that much of the long-term harm that results from chemotherapy results from the greatly increased burden of senescent cells that it produces. This is obviously a better outcome than dying from cancer, but it is nonetheless a problem that should be addressed. Senescent cells secrete a potent mix of inflammatory signals known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype. This is highly disruptive to tissue function when sustained over the long term, even given a comparatively smal...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs