Posted on 07/04/2008 12:21:46 AM PDT by neverdem
A vaccine that targets a common virus may stave off glioma tumor regrowth
Editor's Note: This story will be published in the next issue of Scientific American Mind.
The deadliest and most common type of brain cancer has a strange bedfellow: cytomegalovirus, a kind of herpes present in about 80 percent of the U.S. population. Now scientists are exploiting this coincidence to treat the cancer with a vaccine that targets the virus and slows tumor regrowth.
In 2002 scientists showed that cytomegalovirus, or CMV, was active in the brain tumors but not the surrounding healthy tissue of all 27 patients they tested who had glioblastoma multiforme. CMV is dormant and undetectable in most people. Neuroscientist Duane Mitchell of Duke University Medical Center and his colleagues confirmed in 2007 that CMV is active in at least 90 percent of glioblastoma tumors. Now Mitchell’s team has developed an experimental vaccine that triggers the immune system to attack CMV, thereby attacking its tumor tissue home. As reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in June, the vaccine, together with radiation and chemotherapy, prevented the brain tumor from reemerging after surgery for 12 months as compared with the typical six to seven months with no vaccine. Patients’ average life span increased from 14 months to more than 20.
So does this herpes virus cause cancer? The answer is unclear: tumor cells may simply be a fertile ground for growing the virus, as cells such as these often lack the normal immune functions that suppress CMV reproduction. But University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers reported in May that the virus has the ability to take over a cell’s braking mechanism and cause uncontrolled reproduction. Even so, the numbers do not seem to add up: four of five Americans has CMV, but only about one in 30,000 ends up with glioblastoma. And a small number of glioblastoma patients do not have CMV in their tumors.
“Most evidence to date does not support CMV being a cancer-causing virus,” Mitchell says. Don Diamond, a virologist at the City of Hope Cancer Center near Los Angeles, agrees: his extensive research on CMV and cancer has convinced him the virus does not cause tumors. But for patients it does not matter whether the connection between herpes and brain cancer is causal or not—the vaccine appears to work. Mitchell hopes to have the vaccine ready for market in a few years.
Hey, I wonder if...
***Does Herpes Cause Brain Cancer?***
Worth exploring.
Was it in the ‘90s that the guy who linked most gastric ulcers to H. pylori was declared a nutcase?
Ruh-roh...
Interesting ... I’ve been waiting to see some pre-emptive propaganda floated before the GIGANTIC cellphone/brain cancer suit is eventually, and inevitably, filed.
I’ll continue to closely follow other “THIS causes brain cancer! Look over here! Not at your cellphone!” stories with interest.
No, seriously. :o
Another-trip-to-the-clinic ping!
Yeah, right up till the patents for the various "acid reducing" drugs expired. Then no one cared if anti-biotics were developed for stomach ulcers.
Is this the one that causes “cold sores”?
before the 90s
Nobel for stomach ulcer discovery
I didn't hear anything like that.
IIRC, Herpes simplex virus type 1 is usually associated with cold sores.
The Truth about HSV-1 and HSV-2
This site seems to agree with what I have learned after a quick scan. They are up to 8 different members of the Herpes "family" of viruses.
Thanks for the link.
Thanks.
That was the only one I could come up with (or the only one any I know, has).
New approach will finally kill herpes
Researchers blame HPV for rise in throat cancer [Veterans of swinging sixties may pay for free love]
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list. Happy Fourth of July!!!
Interesting. I was just checked for CMV a few weeks ago, and am still negative (despite having a CMV+ kidney installed a few weeks ago). I guess the Valcyte is working....
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