University of Alberta researchers may have devised an extra-effective brain tumor treatment by combining radiation therapy with a cancer-targeting virus. The researchers found that the combination of both treatments was more effective at treating brain cancer in mice than taking the treatments separately, indicating that scientists could develop effective cancer treatments by combining existing therapies.
Brain cancer is a deadly disease that is characterized by the development and spread of tumors in the brain and has exceedingly poor health outcomes. Like most cancers, brain tumors have no cure. Most treatment efforts involve killing off as many cancer cells as possible and preventing them from spreading via treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. However, these treatments aren’t always effective and some of their side effects can be extremely severe.
Scientists have been working on ways to better diagnose and treat different kinds of brain cancers, especially severe types such as glioblastoma, which has a survival rate of just 14 to 16 months after diagnosis. Researchers from the University of Alberta simultaneously treated mice with glioblastomas with a cancer-killing virus and high-dose radiation to see the effect of combining both treatments. They were particularly interested in glioblastoma as it is one of the deadliest types of cancer.
While the virus treatment had a 15% cure rate and the radiation had a 20% cure rate when taken alone, the treatments had a cure rate of 67% when taken together.
In addition, when the research team introduced fresh tumor cells to the brains of the combination-treated mice, they found that 62% rejected the new cancer cells.
Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry graduate research assistant fellow and first study author Quinn Storozynsky called the results of the study remarkable, stating that the combination of both treatments was ultimately superior to the parts alone. Harnessing the immune system’s ability to find and kill cancer cells would allow for an incredibly effective treatment that leverages the body’s own resources to help itself.
Given that this combination research is still in its infancy, Storozynsky hopes to see further studies that combine cancer-killing vaccines with radiation to supercharge the effectiveness of each method of treatment.
Principal investigator and associate professor of oncology Mary Hitt says that a potential avenue for further research would be combining radiation and cancer-killing viruses with immune checkpoint inhibitors to see if the combination boosts the effectiveness even more. However, only one cancer-killing or oncolytic virus has received FDA approval for use in humans in the U.S., and Canadian regulators currently do not allow their use in humans.
Hitt expects such viruses to see increased clinical use over the next decades.
Further help for brain cancer patients could come from the work being done by drug development enterprises such as CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) that are seeking to bring to market formulations with higher efficacy and a superior safety profile when compared to those that currently exist.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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