Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer is the tenth most common cancer in the UK and is difficult to treat. Current treatments are invasive and often have unpleasant side effects. This cancer also has a high recurrence rate-usually in a more aggressive form.
Researchers want to see if abnormal treatment (a common cold virus) can treat this cancer well. This is the first time this treatment has been tried, and the researchers are very satisfied with the results. Researchers used the virus to treat 15 patients with stage 1 bladder cancer. In just one week, 14 tumors shrank. The remaining patients have no symptoms. Most importantly, there are no serious side effects. The anti-cancer Coxsackie virus used in this study was used to treat skin cancer in previous studies, but the researchers hope to test its potential in the treatment of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. Yes, there is an urgent need for more effective and less invasive treatments to treat this disease. The study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, suggests that Coxsackie virus may be a treatment for this.
From bacteria to viruses
In the UK, about 10,000 people are diagnosed with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer each year. The first step in treating these patients is to remove the cancerous tissue from the bladder lining. For some people this is sufficient, but for others, the removed tumor tissue indicates a higher risk of recurrence and the cancer is more aggressive. For these people, live tuberculosis (BCG) is often used for treatment. BCG was first used to treat bladder cancer in the 1970s. It works by infecting the bladder and encouraging immune cells to move to the infected site and attack cancer cells. The problem with BCG is that it is difficult to manufacture and can cause inflammation of the entire bladder, so the treatment has serious side effects such as pain, bleeding and fever.
The treatment of Coxsackie virus is different because it is limited, topical and has almost no side effects. The immune environment of the lining of the bladder where non-muscle invasive bladder cancer develops is not fully understood. The protective effect of liners on cancer is limited because we know that they are not highly developed. Unlike cancer treatments that are injected into the blood (such as chemotherapy), bladder-oriented treatments (the treatments used by researchers) have the advantage of treating cancer directly and locally. Insert the catheter into the bladder and inject the virus into the bladder for 1 hour. Then, you can collect urine samples regularly to see if the cancer cells have died. The Coxsackie virus is a small, rather primitive virus that needs anchors to infect and invade cells. This anchor is a protein called ICAM-1, which is low in certain normal tissues and high in bladder cancer. Early laboratory studies have shown that Coxsackie virus can quickly kill cancer cells in large numbers. The virus previously thought to be used to treat bladder cancer has no specific target. After genetic modification (naturally occurring Coxsackie virus), the patient's tumor has been removed and treated in previous trials. There is no organization available to measure the effectiveness of the virus.
Once inside the cancer cell, the Coxsackie virus replicates and kills the host cell. Normal cells have a natural antiviral response and can destroy viruses (cancer cells have lost this ability). Replicating viruses can invade adjacent cancer cells, thereby enhancing their anti-cancer effects.
poisonous plant
When a tumor becomes a virus factory, the virus puts pressure on the cell before killing it. This allows the infected cancer cells to recognize the danger and activate a variety of proteins to warn the immune system. Evidence of all these characteristics was found in tissue samples. The production of these "immunogenic" proteins leads to an influx of immune cells, which are initiating and effective cancer killers.
Actually, the patients in this study had no side effects after being injected with the virus. This indicates that the virus only attacks cancer cells, leaving healthy cells intact. After the operation, the researchers examined the removed tissue and confirmed it. Every year, two-thirds of patients can use this therapy, these patients make the disease more serious, but larger studies confirm this new discovery. It's required. The researchers hope to lead these efforts in collaboration with several other cancer centers in the UK.