The most common and the most effective (for now) cancer treatments – chemotherapy and radiotherapy – are also quite toxic. They damage healthy cells as well as cancer cells and cause tremendous side effects. Now a new study ath the Newcastle University found that a one-off simple treatment could potentially prevent devastating consequences of cancer therapies.
Radiotherapy device. These machines can kill cancer cells, but damage the surrounding healthy tissue as well. Image credit: Ntligent via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
In an animal study researchers discovered that senolytics, a class of drugs that specifically eliminate damaged cells due to cancer therapies, could prevent side effects of radiotherapies. Senolytics are relatively new drugs, developed in ageing research. Their main purpose is eliminating senescent cells by targeting their survival mechanisms that are not present in normal cells. Removing these cells should help the body to restore healthy tissues with healthy cells. And scientists believed that senolytics could be much more useful than just slowing down ageing.
They tested this idea in mice models. The reason for this research was side effects of radiotherapies. These kinds of cancer treatments cause cell damage which is akin to premature ageing. Scientists treated mice with radiotherapies and soon after administered some senolytics. Researchers found that this treatment prevented premature ageing. Scientists also administered senolytics to mice that have already begun to develop premature ageing – although this timing was probably not ideal, mice in this group also showed improved health condition.
Dr Satomi Miwa, lead author of the study, said: “Increasing numbers of people are now successfully treated for cancer, and the survival rates from many cancer types are high. The people who had beaten cancers can start looking forward to their new lives again – but only if the quality of life is not going to be affected. Sadly, this is the case for the moment. However, our new research shows that there is a way to prevent any long-term side effects occurring, and to reduce risks of cancer relapse.”
Senolytics are currently being tested to treat such conditions as pulmonary fibrosis (lung fibrosis), diabetic kidney disease and osteoarthritis. Preventing side adverse effects of radiotherapies would be a tremendous addition to this list. Senolytics still need to prove themselves, but scientists believe that they could be extremely helpful treating childhood brain tumour survivors – children who had brain tumours typically suffer from extreme long term effects.
Cancer is a terrible disease and treating it gently is extremely difficult. Hopefully, side effects of cancer treatments in the future will be a thing of the past.
Source: Newcastle University