Kathleen[a]
Virus-drug combination may fight glioblastoma
Tue 03 Jan 2006
A new study has found that a cancer drug and an engineered form of the herpes simplex virus may work together more effectively than either agent alone to destroy glioblastoma cells from human brain cancers.
Manish Aghi, M.D., Ph.D., of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues paired chemotherapy with an oncolytic, or cancer killing, genetically engineered form of the herpes simplex virus called G207. They tested both agents together and separately in cancer cells and in mice with gliomas. Their laboratory studies on human cancer cells found that the virus and the drug act synergistically in cancer cells to promote cell death. Mice with brain gliomas treated with both the virus and the drug survived more than twice as long as those treated with either agent alone.
"Glioma treatment with chemotherapy and G207, possibly giving chemotherapy before inoculating virus during surgery to take advantage of chemo-induced DNA repair in residual glioma cells, warrants a clinical trial," the authors conclude.