[Relation between aging and cancer]

Abstract

Relationship between aging and cancerization is a very interesting problem to be clarified in future. As the most important finding in the aged, Tauchi previously proposed a decrease in number of the parenchymal cells due mainly to "inhibitory factors for cell division", which increase with growth, differentiation, maturation and aging of the cells, and for the cancerization he suggested a loss of the "inhibitory factors" due to dedifferentiation of the cells. On the growth promoting and/or inhibitory factors, some discussions have been made, in relation to the immortalization, and cancerization of the cells and also to the aging process of them.