Are cancer and ageing different sides of the same coin?

Abstract

The European Conference on Cancer and Ageing—SeneCa, senescence and cancer—took place in Warsaw, Poland, between 4 and 6 October 2007, and was organized by E. Sikora and M. Szumowski. ![][1] What is the relationship between ageing and cancer? Simple—cells need time to accumulate sufficient mutations for carcinogenesis to occur. But of course, nothing is really so simple. If true, short‐lived organisms would never get cancer: it could be that this is the case for some animals, but even Caenorhabditis elegans suffers from germ cell tumours (Francis et al , 1995) and the cause of death of short‐lived rodents such as mice—in the laboratory at least—is commonly cancer. In fact, cancer incidence rates scale with longevity in mammals in terms of occurrence at the same percentage of lifespan accomplished. We must therefore look elsewhere for the explanation of why cancer rates (for most types of cancer) increase with age in both short‐ and long‐lived animals. The European Conference on Cancer and Ageing brought together a multidisciplinary group of scientists to discuss the multifaceted aspects of this intriguing relationship, which is of even greater importance than thus far appreciated. A. Yashin (Durham, NC, USA) showed that the frequently quoted mere 3.5 years of additional life expectancy that would be gained were cancer to be cured is incorrect because epidemiological studies have evaluated cancer independently of other causes of death. In fact, the impact would be much greater. The sobering statistic that two‐thirds of all people reaching 65 years of age are currently alive, and the well‐recognized age‐associated increase in rates of most cancers, suggests that cancer treatment and cancer deaths will represent an ever‐greater burden on health care throughout the world. Indeed, it is estimated that deaths from cancer will continue to exceed even those from tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS combined (P. Boyle, Lyon, … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif