Background
Cellular senescence is a terminal cell-cycle arrest that occurs in response to activated oncogenes and DNA-damaging chemotherapy. Whether cancer cell senescence at diagnosis might be predictive for treatment outcome is unknown.
Conclusion
Cancer cell senescence predicts treatment outcome in metastasised CRC. Prospective analyses of larger patient cohorts are needed.
Methods
A senescence index (SI) was developed and used to retrospectively correlate the treatment outcome of 30 UICC stage IV colorectal cancer (CRC) patients with their SI at diagnosis.
Results
5-Fluorouracil/leucovorin-treated CRC patients achieved a significantly longer progression-free survival when presenting with SI-positive tumours before therapy (median 12.0 vs 6.0 months; P=0.044).