Cellular Senescence in Cancer: Clinical Detection and Prognostic Implications

Overview

Journal J Exp Clin Cancer Res

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Oncology

Date 2022 Dec 27

PMID 36575462

Authors

Andreas Domen

Christophe Deben

Jasper Verswyvel

Tal Flieswasser

Hans Prenen

Marc Peeters

Filip Lardon

An Wouters

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Cellular senescence is a state of stable cell-cycle arrest with secretory features in response to cellular stress. Historically, it has been considered as an endogenous evolutionary homeostatic mechanism to eliminate damaged cells, including damaged cells which are at risk of malignant transformation, thereby protecting against cancer. However, accumulation of senescent cells can cause long-term detrimental effects, mainly through the senescence-associated secretory phenotype, and paradoxically contribute to age-related diseases including cancer. Besides its role as tumor suppressor, cellular senescence is increasingly being recognized as an in vivo response in cancer patients to various anticancer therapies. Its role in cancer is ambiguous and even controversial, and senescence has recently been promoted as an emerging hallmark of cancer because of its hallmark-promoting capabilities. In addition, the prognostic implications of cellular senescence have been underappreciated due to the challenging detection and sparse in and ex vivo evidence of cellular senescence in cancer patients, which is only now catching up. In this review, we highlight the approaches and current challenges of in and ex vivo detection of cellular senescence in cancer patients, and we discuss the prognostic implications of cellular senescence based on in and ex vivo evidence in cancer patients.

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