An option for brain tumors.

Although this will be too late for my dad, it is great to hear of some advances.

I hope all this goes well.




Tailored virus kills brain cancer cells in mice

Tailored virus kills brain cancer cells in mice

Sept. 11, 2007
Courtesy M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
and World Science staff

A cus­tomized vi­rus in a mouse study killed stem cells that cause an ex­tremely ag­gres­sive, te­na­cious brain can­cer, re­search­ers re­port.

Sci­en­tists at the Un­ivers­ity of Tex­as M. D. An­der­son Can­cer Cen­ter in Hous­ton, Tex­as an­nounced the find­ings in the Sept. 18 is­sue of the Jour­nal of the Na­t­ional Can­cer In­sti­tute.

The vi­rus “can tar­get and elim­i­nate the cells that drive brain tu­mors,” by es­sen­tially forc­ing them to eat them­selves, said study co-author Juan Fue­yo. The re­search­ers said they ex­pect to sub­mit a re­quest to launch a clin­i­cal tri­al of the vi­rus, called Delta-24-RGD, this month.

They tested the vi­rus against the most ag­gres­sive brain tu­mor, glioblas­toma mul­ti­forme, which orig­i­nates in spe­cial­ized cells known as glia, Fue­yo said. Glia sur­round and sup­port neu­rons, the brain cells that con­duct elec­tri­cal sig­nals.

Glioblas­toma mul­ti­forme re­sists radia­t­ion and chem­o­ther­a­py treat­ments and is so in­va­sive that sur­gery al­most nev­er elim­i­nates it, Fue­yo and col­leagues said. Pa­tients suf­fer­ing from this ma­lig­nan­cy live on av­er­age for about 14 months with treat­ment.