NewScientist (11 February 2017) reports on a fascinating new finding with regards to cancer:
When older cells naturally stop dividing, they become “senescent”. These kinds of cells also pump out a slew of chemicals that cause inflammation, which can damage surrounding tissue. Senescent cells have been linked to a growing list of age-related diseases, including Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis and heart failure.
Marco Demaria at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands wondered if senescence might be responsible for the long list of side effects associated with chemotherapy. “Most people have fatigue, and most of the time this becomes chronic,” he says. “Some people have muscle weakness, nausea, dizziness, problems with their bones or heart damage for example.” Such side effects can occur for months after treatment has finished.
To explore the effects of senescent cells, Demaria and his colleagues genetically engineered mice so these cells would fluoresce. They then gave the mice cancer, and one of four common chemotherapy drugs: doxorubicin, cisplatin, paclitaxel and temozolomide.
Chemotherapy increased the number of senescent cells in the mice. “We saw senescence everywhere: in the liver, lung, heart, skin and fat,” says Demaria.
In another trial, they gave the mice a drug known to kill senescent cells, and the mice didn’t show the health problems shown by the first group. Unfortunately …
“If we had a drug that we could use in humans, we could lower the toxicity and improve the efficacy of chemotherapy,” says Demaria. At the moment, there isn’t an appropriate drug that could be trialled in people. The drug given to the mice can cause a fatal shortage of blood platelets in humans.
But at least there’s a target. Chemo-fatigue is a fairly awful side effect.
