New Viral Cancer Treatment May Help Treat Deadly Lung Cancer
A new viral treatment that destroys cancer cells but leaves normal cells unaffected may help patients suffering from a particularly deadly type of lung cancer. The viral treatment Reolysin will be used in combination with two standard chemotherapy drugs to treat squamous non-small cell lung cancer, a form of cancer that is not usually cured with current treatments.
According to researchers from the Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Reolysin is an experimental treatment derived from the reovirus, which is a common virus. Reolysin treatment directly kills many types of cancer cells and works synergistically with many approved chemotherapy drugs and radiation.
How does the reovirus work?
According to an HSC news release, when the reovirus enters a cancer cell, it produces thousands of copies of itself, causing the cell to burst. But the reovirus can replicate only in cancer cells with mutations along a signaling pathway in the cell called the Ras pathway, while leaving normal cells unharmed. Approximately two-thirds of all human cancers express this particular mutation and are therefore a potential target for Reolysin treatment.