Monday, December 13, 2021

Studies Suggest the Common Cold Can Help With Bladder Cancer Treatment

 



Using viruses to treat cancers has been successful including the use of a modified form of herpes to treat melanoma.  As a virus enters the immune system, it replicates itself in a cancer cell which causes the body to react as if it is a common cold and attack it.  

Current treatment for bladder cancer, the seventh most common form, has been unsuccessful.

A strain of the common cold, CVA21, was used in a study of 15 patients in the UK.  They were each given one dose of the strain a week prior to their surgeries for the removal of their tumors.  

Urine samples showed CVA21 was able to kill many cancerous cells and did not attack the healthy cells in the body.  This response lead researchers to believe that the virus inflamed the tumor, which in turn jumpstarted the immune systems response.  

While this only occurred in a small sample size, this can be used in the future for bladder cancer treatments in hope to be successful in destroying cancer cells in patients.  

2 comments:

  1. Hi Casey,
    This is very interesting. Did any of the patients receive chemo therapy along with this to see if it would speed up the process? I wonder how the two treatments would interact.

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    1. Caitlin. Your question is the same as mine. I wonder if the chemicals involved with chemotherapy interact with the virus and work together to target the specific cancer cells in the bladder.

      I wonder if the study was expanded to a bigger population (100+) there would similar results. Perhaps there is a different virus that is more effective at destroying these cancer cells.

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