Gerontology & Geriatric Research

The suppressive effect of organism senescence on cancers

International Conference on Geriatrics & Gerontology

July 08-10, 2014 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Chicago-North Shore Conference Center, USA

Alvaro Macieira-Coelho

Accepted Abstracts: J Gerontol Geriat Res

Abstract:

Most of the scientific literature reports that aging favors the development of cancers. However, each type of cancer initiates and evolves differently, more than half of the cancers become clinically manifested during the second half of the human life span and their frequency increases with age, but their natural history starts way back at earlier ages. The incidence of each type of cancer is related inter alia to the developmental stages of the human life span. There are cancers characteristic of the early and late post-natal developmental stages, others of maturity, others of the stage of sexual involution, and finally during human senescence the incidence declines for all cancers. In general, the progression of cancers is also slower in the old people. There are several possible explanations for this decline, which will be described. The idea that aging favors the development of cancers is so ingrained that even when the data point against this view, investigators do not accept it. The evolution of neoplastic disease is the result of pre- and postnatal aggressions suffered by the organism, individual susceptibility, and developmental events that evolve continuously from beginning to the end of the human life span. One has to stop accepting the dogma that aging favors neoplastic growth and ask why tumors are characteristic of the different developmental periods and why the incidence declines during senescence. These questions should be solved before the origins of cancers can be understood.

Biography :

Alvaro Macieira-Coelho completed MD at the University of Lisbon, Portugal and was an intern at the University Hospital. He completed his PhD at the University of Uppsala, Swedenand was appointed as the Head of the Department of Cell Pathology, Cancer Institute, Villejuif, France and Research Director at the French National Institute of Health. He has authored 150 peer reviewed articles and published nine books. He received the Fritz Verzar Prize, University of Vienna; Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Link?ping; Johananof International Visiting Professor, Mario Negri Institute, Milan; Seeds of Science Career Prize, Lisbon.