Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by epilepsy, mental retardation and hamartomatous lesions in multiple organs. It has been shown that the genes responsible for TSC, TSC1 and TSC2, act as tumor suppressors, but the mechanism of hamartomatous growth in several tissues is not completely understood. The TSC hamartomas are essentially benign and they rarely progress to malignant tumors. In this report, we cultured the angiofibroma stroma cells of three adult TSC patients and compared these cells with normal skin fibroblasts for their proliferative capacity, cell morphology and mitotic cycle using a stain for microtubules and the expression of the senescent associated beta-galactosidase (SA beta-Gal). Cultured angiofibroma stroma cells from TSC patients displayed several characteristics observed in human senescent fibroblasts; a low proliferative capacity, an increase in cell size, increased binucleated cells in association with abnormal cytokinesis and increased SA beta-Gal positives. Growth of facial angiofibromas in TSC may be caused by a gain in enhanced sensitivity toward some of the potential mitogens and forced multiplication without loss of the cellular senescent program; this may be the reason why TSC hamartomas rarely progress to malignancy and why the growths are limited to a finite size.