Japanese Researchers Find Clearing Senescent Cells May Treat Bladder Cancer

Researchers at the University of Tokyo and other institutions recently issued a joint press release reporting that a kind of p16-positive senescent cells in bladder tissue may be associated with the development of bladder cancer. Through experiments on laboratory mice, the researchers found that, when they used genetic technology to induce apoptosis of p16-positive senescent cells in transgenic mice and then transplanted bladder cancer cells into those mice, the development of bladder cancer was suppressed. The success of this study helps in developing new bladder-cancer drugs targeting p16-positive senescent cells. The related paper was published in the latest issue of the British journal Nature Aging.

Bladder cancer is a disease closely tied to aging. Although it can occur at any age, most patients are over 50, and it is more common in men, whose incidence is 3–4 times that of women. By tissue of origin, bladder cancer is divided into urothelial carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and sarcoma of the bladder; urothelial carcinoma accounts for over 90%.

Early bladder-cancer patients often have no obvious symptoms. As the disease progresses, symptoms such as dysuria, frequency, dysuria, and hematuria may appear, but these are easily confused with common conditions such as urinary calculi, leading to misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis. In recent years the incidence of bladder cancer has risen significantly; in 2018 it already ranked 16th among malignant tumors in China. Middle-aged and elderly people over 50 should undergo early bladder-cancer screening during routine check-ups, because early detection is the key to cure.

Bladder cancer is currently treated mainly with surgery, but most intermediate- and advanced-stage patients are not surgical candidates. Although internal methods such as chemotherapy can also be used, the response rate is low, and bladder cancer easily develops resistance to chemotherapy drugs, so new therapeutic approaches are urgently needed.

In the past, the medical community generally held that bladder cancer is related to factors such as aging, smoking, chronic infection, and exposure to carcinogens, but no effective cure had been found. The findings of the University of Tokyo researchers promise a new breakthrough in bladder-cancer treatment. We look forward to new targeted drugs against p16-positive senescent cells being developed soon and, through clinical trials, benefiting bladder-cancer patients.