Entry #4 Killing Cancer

In an effort to find cure for cancer scientists turn their attention to viruses and immune system. They try to find a way to make our immune system to attack the cancer the same way it fights infections. This is the so called Immunotherapy. One study found that Polio virus can be used to treat cancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acrlYaAqAKU

This 60 minutes show was about a clinical trial done at the Duke University. The doctors were using experimental therapy to treat patients with a deadly brain cancer called glioblastoma. Cancer cells develop a shield that makes them invisible to the immune system. In this way they can spread without being attacked. The medical staff injected the tumor with a re-engineered version of the polio virus. 

Dr. Mathias Bromire removed a genetic key sequence from the polio virus that causes paralysis and death. He replaced it with a strand of the common cold virus. The new modified virus was injected into the cancer cells. This leads to the awakening of the immune system. The immune system releases toxins that kill the cancer cells.

 

This therapy saved the lives of 16 patients, including the live of a young woman. 

The first patient was 20 years old Stephanie, a nursing student who would not be alive if it was not for the Polio virus therapy. It is impossible to imagine the emotions this young girl and her family went through during her diagnosis and treatment. She was lucky to survive. She graduated nursing and today she is helping patients to be treated, knowing perfectly well how they feel as patients from personal experience.

Hopefully someday all the research done with the purpose to find treatment for cancer will come to an end and there will be cure for cancer.