It was found that about 265,438+0% of brain cancer patients who received poliovirus treatment were still alive after three years. In contrast, in a group of cancer patients who had received treatment before, only 4% of patients who had received standard treatment (such as chemotherapy) survived after three years.
The researchers say that this is still a small-scale study, and the exact effect of polio virus therapy cannot be determined, so further research is needed. More importantly, most patients in this study did not respond to the new treatment at all. [5 facts about brain cancer]
But the researchers say the new results are promising, and they plan to do more research to see if they can increase the percentage of patients who benefit from treatment.
"Glioblastoma remains a deadly and devastating disease," Dr. Darrell Biegner, honorary director and senior research author of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke Cancer Institute, said in a statement. Biegner said that people need radically different methods to "treat this disease". According to the early survival rate of polio virus treatment, we are encouraged and eager to continue other studies that have been carried out or planned.
The study was presented at the international conference on brain tumor research and treatment held in Norway on Tuesday (June 26th) and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers say malignant glioma is a life-threatening cancer.
Patients are the most common type of malignant brain tumors in adults, and usually survive less than 20 months after diagnosis. Patients with recurrent cancer (meaning that cancer seems to disappear and then recur) usually do not live to 12 months.
In this new study, the researchers genetically modified the polio virus so that it could not cause polio or reproduce in brain cells. But modifying the virus to find cancer cells, once infected with these cells, will trigger the human immune system to attack cancer cells.
This study involved 6 1 recurrent glioblastoma patients who received indirect treatment (direct injection into the brain) with modified poliovirus from 20 12 to 20 17. Before poliovirus treatment, these patients were compared with 104 patients with recurrent glioblastoma who received standard treatment at Duke University. The latter group is called "historical control group".
Overall, the median survival time of patients treated with poliovirus was 12.5 months, while that of historical control group was 1 1.3 months. ("median survival" refers to the number of people living in the median; In other words, the number of people who live long is equal, and the number of people who live shorter than the median is equal. )
The median survival time of the two groups was similar, and the researchers found that the long-term survival rate was quite different. Two years later, the survival rate of patients treated with poliovirus was 265,438+0%, while the survival rate of historical control group was 65,438+04%. After three years, the survival rate of poliovirus treatment group was still 265,438+0%, while the survival rate of historical control group decreased to 4%. For some reason, they don't respond to polio virus treatment, but if they do, they often become long-term survivors, an associate professor of neurosurgery at Duke University.
The first patient to receive treatment was Stephanie Huo Po. According to CBS News, she was diagnosed with glioblastoma at the age of 20 and received polio virus treatment on 20 12. Now 27-year-old Huo Po has graduated from university, got married and became a registered nurse.
Initially, the researchers planned to increase the dose of poliovirus treatment for patients, but they found that at higher doses, some patients developed inflammation, leading to serious side effects, such as seizures. Therefore, in this study, most patients were given low doses.
Researchers have started a new study that combines poliovirus therapy with lomustine, a chemotherapy drug for recurrent glioblastoma.
Original articles on life sciences.