A virus that hunts down and treats cancer has been used in patients for the first time, with encouraging results.
Canadian doctors found an intravenous injection allowed the virus to spread through the bloodstream and infect tumour cells anywhere in the body.
Healthy tissue was unharmed.
The ground-breaking trial was intended to test only safety.
But in six of the eight patients given the highest doses, the tumours shrank or stopped growing.
Professor John Bell, of The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, said: “We are very excited because this is the first time in medical history that a viral therapy has been shown to consistently and selectively replicate in cancer tissue.”
Cancer cells
The JX-594 virus was derived from a strain used in the smallpox vaccine. It was engineered to enhance its anti-cancer properties.
The 23 patients in the trial had a range of advanced cancers that had stopped responding to existing treatments.
They were given a one-off infusion of the virus. Some suffered flu-like symptoms, but the treatment was otherwise well-tolerated.
The trial is reported in the journal Nature and further studies are now planned.
Professor Nick Lemoine, of Cancer Research UK, said the treatment showed “real promise”.
“This new study is important because it shows that a virus previously used safely to vaccinate against smallpox can now be modified to reach cancers through the bloodstream – even after cancer has spread widely through the patient’s body.
“It is particularly encouraging that responses were seen even in tumours such as mesothelioma, a cancer which can be particularly hard to treat.”
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