CINCINNATI, July 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ —
Scientists have used a genetically reprogrammed herpes virus and an
anti-vascular drug to shrink spreading distant sarcomas designed to
model metastatic disease in mice – still an elusive goal when
treating humans with cancer, according to a study in the July 8 Gene Therapy.
Less than 30 percent of patients with metastatic cancer survive
beyond five years, despite the aggressive use of modern combination
therapies, including chemotherapy. This creates a significant need
for new sarcoma therapies to treat metastatic disease, said Timothy Cripe, M.D., Ph.D., a
physician/researcher in the division of Hematology/Oncology at
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the study’s
senior investigator.
The study results are even more significant because the
oncolytic herpes virus, HSV-rRp450, was given to the mice
systemically to attack tumors via the blood stream instead of being
injected directly into tumors.
“Systemic bio-distribution has been a major stumbling block for
using virus vectors in gene transfer and virotherapy to treat
cancer, but we show that viruses can be used systemically by giving
them intravenously to get an anti-tumor effect,” Dr. Cripe
said.
Also important to results of the current study was using the
virus in conjunction with a drug (bevacizumab) that blocks the
growth of tumor feeding-blood vessels. In the current study,
researchers focused on spreading Ewing sarcoma and Rhabdomyosarcoma
– cancers that form in muscle, bone and connective
tissue.
Anti-angiogenic agents like bevacizumab are usually given first
in combination cancer therapies because they help enlarge
interce
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