60 minutes program-Polio virus kills cancer

Did anyone watch 60 minutes last night about Duke University research and how they were successful in eliminating brain tumors using an altered polio virus? They mentioned that it should work on other cancers, PCa included. It is an immunotherapy treatment and they feel this is something big. From what I remember, it 'cured' the first two patients, then they increased the dosage and started having problems. I think about half of the 22 trial patients have died and most of those were on the high dose treatment. The scientists have already done a seven year safety study.

I wonder if they have a PCa trial for this.

www.cbsnews.com/news/polio-cancer-treatment-duke-university-60-minutes-scott-pelley/

Watched it also. It was quite impressive to say the least. But also quite scary to be in a phase one trial after seeing how as they changed the dosage of polio virus for each individual patient and how for some it didn’t end so well.

Mike

Absolutely agree

It does look promising. My understanding is that prostate study was against cells in a test tube so far or mice. They are trying to raise money at Duke for more trials.

www.cancer.duke.edu/btc/modules/Research3/index.php?id=41

Post Edited (robertC) : 3/30/2015 6:39:35 AM (GMT-6)

What was amazing is some patients who were supposed to have 6 months to live, were alive and Cancer free after three years. That's huge, not like adding a few months to life expectancy.

Yes, the PCA experiment was in a Petrie dish

The big drum that is beating now is immunotherapy. This is hope for the giant step forward in fighting cancer.

Here is a quote from RobertC's link:

"Because PVS-RIPO naturally targets and destroys cancer cells from most common cancer types (pancreas, prostate, lung, colon, and many others), it can be directed against these cancers as well. To establish this in the clinic, we plan future clinical trials in patients with cancers other than brain tumors."

"Viruses engineered to kill cancer cells are known as “oncolytic viruses,” and they must be able to target the cancer and destroy it, while remaining safe at the same time. “Accomplishing this is very difficult scientifically and only very few viruses are suitable as cancer-fighting agents in the clinic,” Duke University’s PVS-RIPO website notes. “We achieved this feat by genetic engineering to remove poliovirus’ inherent disease-causing ability … PVS-RIPO [the altered polio virus] naturally infects almost all cancer cells, because the receptor for poliovirus (which is used for cell entry) is abnormally present on most tumor cells.”

Source:

www.medicaldaily.com/fighting-brain-cancer-polio-doctors-treat-college-students-tumor-poliovirus-279688

So if this particular polio virus "... naturally infects almost all cancer cells..." then maybe it really does have potential use in fighting PCa.

Another possible treatment investigation to follow with great interest.

Jerry_Delaware said...
Also, I understood the 60 minutes piece to say the patients that died were given an excessive dose which caused their immune system to overreact. i.e. more is not better.

That is what I heard too.

I really didn't understand why that one woman said if she had it to do over, she would not do it. She was "over dosed" and died later. But wouldn't that be her outcome if she did not take the treatment?

Absolutely agree with @montee - I don't see how this could be applied to multiple Mx, and that was not addressed! May work well for single or organ confined tumor though.

Onwards & upwards, rd

It was mentioned that other viruses were also being used for other cancers. One is the Prostvac trial at NIH. They use the smallpox vaccine. I am in that trial but did not get assigned to the vaccine arm. As someone noted earlier this vaccine in the 60 Minutes report appears to require injection into the tumor. The Prostvacc is a systemic treatment that tries to get the immune system excited and attacking the cancer cells wherever they are in the body. I do hope that one of these types of treatments are successful soon though I will likely not be able to pay for it.

Don

I am bumping this thread with an update link that came out on 8/27/15.  At Duke University they are preparing for a trial with prostate cancer patients.

 "Can a modified poliovirus fight advanced prostate cancer too?"

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-08-poliovirus-advanced-prostate-cancer.html