Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is among the most common dose-limiting adverse effects of cancer treatment, leading to dose reduction and discontinuation of life-saving chemotherapy and a permanently impaired quality of life for patients. Currently, no effective treatment or prevention is available. Senescence induced during cancer treatment has been shown to promote the adverse effects. Here, we show that cisplatin induces senescent-like neuronal cells in primary culture and in mouse dorsal root ganglia (DRG), as determined by the characteristic senescence markers including senescence-associated beta-galactosidase, accumulation of cytosolic p16 INK4A and HMGB1, as well as increased expression of p16Ink4a, p21, and MMP-9. The accumulation of senescent-like neuronal cells in DRG is associated with cisplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) in mice. To determine if depletion of senescent-like neuronal cells may effectively mitigate CIPN, we used a pharmacological 'senolytic' agent, ABT263, which inhibits the anti-apoptotic proteins BCL-2 and BCL-xL and selectively kills senescent cells. Our results demonstrated that clearance of DRG senescent neuronal cells reverses CIPN, suggesting that senescent-like neurons play a role in CIPN pathogenesis. This finding was further validated using transgenic p16-3MR mice, which permit ganciclovir (GCV) to selectively kill senescent cells expressing herpes simplex virus 1 thymidine kinase (HSV-TK). We showed that CIPN was alleviated upon GCV administration to p16-3MR mice. Together, the results suggest that clearance of senescent DRG neuronal cells following platinum-based cancer treatment might be an effective therapy for the debilitating side effect of CIPN. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, a common dose-limiting toxicity of many chemotherapy regimens, limits the potentially curative effects of systemic chemotherapy 1-4. Particularly, platinum-based chemotherapeutics, such as cisplatin, are known to cause systemic neuronal toxicity. Clinically, cisplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) presents as burning, shooting or electric-shock-like pain affecting the feet and hands 2,5 , for which no effective treatments or preventive measures are available 2-4,6. Cisplatin's antineoplastic effects are achieved through the formation of platination products in nuclear DNA 7-9. These DNA-base crosslinks distort DNA helices, interrupting replication and transcription, eventually inducing cell cycle arrest, senescence, or cell death 7-10 .While these effects of cisplatin on cancer cells is desired for treatment, the same processes in normal tissue can cause toxicity. An important senescence phenotype, termed therapy-induced senescence (TIS), can be induced by DNA damage-based chemotherapeutics. The genotoxic stress caused by these agents induces senescence during cancer treatment and has been shown to promote the adverse effects of chemotherapy 11,12. Cellular senescence, a