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wanderkind
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 4:09 pm Post subject: Medicine continues to be fascinating |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/15/womans-cancer-killed-by-measles-virus-in-unprecedented-trial/?tid=hp_mm
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For years, the 50-year-old mom battled myeloma, a blood cancer that affects bone marrow. She had been through chemotherapy treatments and two stem cell transplants. But it wasn’t enough. Soon, scans showed she had tumors growing all over her body. One grew on her forehead, destroying a bone in her skull and pushing on her brain. Cancer had infiltrated her bone marrow.
As part of a two-patient clinical trial, doctors at the Mayo Clinic injected Erholtz with 100 billion units of the measles virus – enough to inoculate 10 million people.
Five minutes into the hour-long process, Erholtz got a terrible headache. Two hours later, she started shaking and vomiting.
Over the next several weeks, the tumor on her forehead disappeared completely and, over time, the other tumors in her body did, too.
Russell said he and his team had engineered the virus to make it more suitable for cancer therapy. And, after just one dose of it, Erholtz’s cancer went into remission.
Though, in this trial, the treatments were successful on only one of the two patients.
In a proof of principle clinical trial, Mayo Clinic researchers have demonstrated that virotherapy — destroying cancer with a virus that infects and kills cancer cells but spares normal tissues — can be effective against the deadly cancer multiple myeloma.
Oncolytic virotherapy — using re-engineered viruses to fight cancer — has a history dating back to the 1950s. Thousands of cancer patients have been treated with oncolytic viruses from many different virus families (herpes viruses, pox viruses, common cold viruses, etc.). However, this study provides the first well-documented case of a patient with disseminated cancer having a complete remission at all disease sites after virus administration.
“What this all tells us is something we never knew before – we never knew you could do this in people,” Russell said. “It’s a very important landmark because now we know it can happen. It’s a game changer. And I think it will drive a development in the field.” |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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What happened to the other patient in the trial?
One cured and one dead wouldn't exactly be a stellar record for the treatment. |
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wanderkind
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Underwaterbob wrote: |
What happened to the other patient in the trial?
One cured and one dead wouldn't exactly be a stellar record for the treatment. |
I think it just didn't have an effect on the cancer in the other patient. Though given they had cancer, they may well now be dead regardless. |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 12:18 am Post subject: |
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| Underwaterbob wrote: |
What happened to the other patient in the trial?
One cured and one dead wouldn't exactly be a stellar record for the treatment. |
50% dead still better than 100% dead |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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The funny thing about science is they are mostly just thinking up solutions to the problems that prior generations of scientists created.
Invention Industrial revolution technology (sugar, hfcs, white flour, grain oil) --> Result metabolic syndrome epidemic in nations that adopted that technology (heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, alzheimers, cancer, depression) --> Invention statins, insulin injections, stomach staples, prozac, cancer research.
It's a real double face palm, not so much that homo sapiens do stupid things, but that they can't even see the cycle of stupidity. |
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wanderkind
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| KimchiNinja wrote: |
The funny thing about science is they are mostly just thinking up solutions to the problems that prior generations of scientists created.
Invention Industrial revolution technology (sugar, hfcs, white flour, grain oil) --> Result metabolic syndrome epidemic in nations that adopted that technology (heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, alzheimers, cancer, depression) --> Invention statins, insulin injections, stomach staples, prozac, cancer research.
It's a real double face palm, not so much that homo sapiens do stupid things, but that they can't even see the cycle of stupidity. |
I don't disagree with most of what you said, but is cancer a metabolic syndrome? Did scientists create cancer?
It seems like the one thing that didn't belong in your post was the one thing (not to constrain the discourse, just pointing it out) the OP article talked about.
But aside from that, yes, I completely agree with you. |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| wanderkind wrote: |
I don't disagree with most of what you said, but is cancer a metabolic syndrome? Did scientists create cancer?
It seems like the one thing that didn't belong in your post was the one thing (not to constrain the discourse, just pointing it out) the OP article talked about.
But aside from that, yes, I completely agree with you. |
Yes, I understand. Cancer is the tough one. All the other diseases' relationship with MetS are easy to grasp. The relationship with cancer is harder to understand (perhaps the cancer needs sugar to grow?). Who knows. Never the less people with MetS have a higher risk of cancer, same as they have a higher risk of heart attack.
That's not to say that if we didn't have a MetS epidemic we wouldn't have cancer and heart attacks, we would, we just wouldn't have an epidemic of them. |
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