THE ESSENTIAL
- In France, cancer is the leading cause of death in men and the second in women.
- Lung, pancreatic and liver cancer are among the most difficult cancers to treat.
A new path for the treatment of intractable cancers is opening up with this new study published in the journal Cancer Cell.
Researchers from the University of Arizona have indeed described how a combination of immunotherapy and virotherapy, using the myxoma virus, makes it possible to strike tumor cells by doubling strengthening the immune system.
Myxome
These two methods have each shown considerable success against certain cancers and together they can work in concert to enhance the immune system’s ability to effectively target and destroy cancer cells.
One such virus, known as myxoma, is the focus of current research and the study shows that using T-cells (cancer cell-killing white blood cells) infected with the myxoma virus can induce a form of cancer cell death that had not been observed before.
Indeed, thanks to this method, the cancerous cells located near those targeted by the therapy are also destroyed in a process known as bystander killing.
cancer killers
This effect can significantly enhance the aggressive eradication of cancer cells by dual therapy, even in notoriously difficult-to-treat solid tumors.
“We are on the edge of discovering new aspects of myxoma virus and oncolytic virotherapy.”, said one of the study’s authors Masmudur Rahman. “Furthermore, these results open the door to experimentation of cancer-killing viruses with other cellular cancer immunotherapies that can be used in cancer patients..”
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