Thema: Presse: Patient takes chance on new treatment
Presse: Patient takes chance on new treatment
Marion[a]
19.08.2002 09:33:59
Cancer patient takes chance on new Calgary treatment
David Heyman
Calgary Herald
Sunday, August 18, 2002
Joan Lisoway
Joan Lisoway is used to being first. She was the City of Calgary´s first female draftsman back in 1964, after being the only woman in a drafting class of 50 at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
She and her husband Jim, as Parks Canada surveyors, were likely the first white people to visit a lonely but historic spit of land off Baffin Island in 1972.
Now she´s leading a much more sombre journey. Lisoway, 57, has become the world´s first brain-cancer victim to receive an injection of the highly promising but experimental cancer-fighting drug Reolysin -- based on the benign reovirus whose properties were discovered and patented right here in Calgary.
She agreed to the trial knowing the results may very well benefit others in future years, rather than herself.
"I could help, or not help, but not helping means I would only have a short time to live," says Lisoway, who has undergone five surgeries, several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatments since the bright February day in 1999 when she was felled by a surprise grand mal seizure.
In order to be eligible for the trial, she had to have at least one recurrence of the disease after initial conventional treatment, something very common with brain cancer.
But Lisoway rejected a last chemotherapy treatment in order to accept the one-time offer to have a Reolysin injection, which required she not have had a recent intervention. It was a risk she figures was worth taking.
"You always have hope, although there are a number of people I knew (with cancer) who aren´t around anymore."
Hope is at the core of the company behind Reolysin, Oncolytics Biotech Inc. which was formed with the sole intention of developing the treatment into a cancer therapy.
After University of Calgary researcher Patrick Lee discovered the reovirus´s cancer-killing qualities in 1998, he and two of his grad students Matt Coffey and Jim Strong took out the first patent, and then gave it over to Oncolytics the following year to turn into a treatment.
Since then, researchers have found the reovirus is able to kill many kinds of human cancer cells -- including breast, prostate, pancreatic and brain tumours -- without any apparent side effects.
The company has now launched Phase II trials for prostate and Phase I and II trials for brian cancer.
Oncolytics brass know the initial results look good, and they´re optimistic, but they figure they´re still years away from a marketable treatment.
"We´re doing it very quickly, of course. We all want it to go quicker," says Brad Thompson, the CEO of Oncolytics.
© Copyright 2002 Calgary Herald
David Heyman
Calgary Herald
Sunday, August 18, 2002
Joan Lisoway
Joan Lisoway is used to being first. She was the City of Calgary´s first female draftsman back in 1964, after being the only woman in a drafting class of 50 at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
She and her husband Jim, as Parks Canada surveyors, were likely the first white people to visit a lonely but historic spit of land off Baffin Island in 1972.
Now she´s leading a much more sombre journey. Lisoway, 57, has become the world´s first brain-cancer victim to receive an injection of the highly promising but experimental cancer-fighting drug Reolysin -- based on the benign reovirus whose properties were discovered and patented right here in Calgary.
She agreed to the trial knowing the results may very well benefit others in future years, rather than herself.
"I could help, or not help, but not helping means I would only have a short time to live," says Lisoway, who has undergone five surgeries, several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatments since the bright February day in 1999 when she was felled by a surprise grand mal seizure.
In order to be eligible for the trial, she had to have at least one recurrence of the disease after initial conventional treatment, something very common with brain cancer.
But Lisoway rejected a last chemotherapy treatment in order to accept the one-time offer to have a Reolysin injection, which required she not have had a recent intervention. It was a risk she figures was worth taking.
"You always have hope, although there are a number of people I knew (with cancer) who aren´t around anymore."
Hope is at the core of the company behind Reolysin, Oncolytics Biotech Inc. which was formed with the sole intention of developing the treatment into a cancer therapy.
After University of Calgary researcher Patrick Lee discovered the reovirus´s cancer-killing qualities in 1998, he and two of his grad students Matt Coffey and Jim Strong took out the first patent, and then gave it over to Oncolytics the following year to turn into a treatment.
Since then, researchers have found the reovirus is able to kill many kinds of human cancer cells -- including breast, prostate, pancreatic and brain tumours -- without any apparent side effects.
The company has now launched Phase II trials for prostate and Phase I and II trials for brian cancer.
Oncolytics brass know the initial results look good, and they´re optimistic, but they figure they´re still years away from a marketable treatment.
"We´re doing it very quickly, of course. We all want it to go quicker," says Brad Thompson, the CEO of Oncolytics.
© Copyright 2002 Calgary Herald
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