Researchers from the Mayo Clinic made a breakthrough study that showed a large dose of measles vaccine enough to immunize 10 million people eliminated a woman's untreatable blood cancer.
The strategy was to use a live virus that would attack the cancer cells and however unlikely it was, the scientists took a step forward when they treated two patients with multiple myeloma and blood cancer by injecting them with large doses of genetically modified measles virus.
With the use of virotherapy, the researchers conducted a clinical trial and discovered that the measles virus succesfully eliminated multiple myeloma cancer cells. In 2013, the Mayo Clinic engineered the MV-NIS (measles virus) and made it selectively toxic to cancer cells.
One of the subjects, Stacy Erholtz from Pequot Lakes, Minnesota has been struggling from her untreatable multiple myeloma or blood cancer for 10 years but after the test, she's been free of the disease for more than six months. In June 2014, Erholtz went for an experimental procedure at Mayo Clinic where doctors injected 100 billion infectious units of vaccine in her. The disease went to complete remission and seems to have been wiped out. The other patient did not respond very well to the procedure and was not as lucky. The team suspects that it could be because she had a different cancer and tumors in the muscles of her leg. The oncolytic virology technique has been used since the 1950's, re-engineering viruses to battle cancer and treating several forms of bladder cancer at its early stage.
"This is the first study to establish the feasibility of systemic oncolytic virotherapy for disseminated cancer," study author, therapy developer and hematologist Dr. Stephen Russell, MD, PhD. from Mayo Clinic said in a statement. "These patients were not responsive to other therapies and had experienced several recurrences of their disease."
The Mayo Clinic plans to conduct a more comprehensive trial, hoping to set and run it by September of this year. Researchers also hope this technique could be adapted to fight different cancers as well. The method could someday be the standard treatment for cancers such as pancreatic or myeloma cancer in the next few years.
