Estimation of the cancer risk induced by rejuvenation therapy with young blood and treatment recommendations

Abstract

In recent years the transfer of blood from young to old individuals was shown to bear the potential of rejuvenation of stem cell activity. While this process might increase life expectancy by prolonging functionality of organs, higher cell replication rates bear also the risk of cancer. The extent of this risk is not known.While it is difficult to evaluate this cancer risk in experiments, this is possible with a mathematical model for tissue homeostasis by stem cell replication and associated cancer risk. The model suggests that young blood treatments can induce a substantial delay of organ failure with only minor increase in cancer risk. The benefit of rejuvenation therapy as well as the impact on cancer risk depend on the biological age at the time of treatment and on the overall cell turnover rate of the organs. Different organs have to be considered separately in the planning of the systemic treatment. In particular, the model predicts that the treatment schedules successfully applied in mice are not directly transferable to humans and guidelines for successful protocols are proposed. The model presented here may be used as a guidance for the development of treatment protocols. Additional informationThere is NO competing interests.