Polio virus offers hope for curing brain cancer

Initial test results in the United States showed that 21% of 61 brain tumor patients survived after three years by injecting polio virus.

Seven years ago, Stephanie Hopper (USA) discovered glioblastoma , the most common form. For a girl who was only 20 years old at the time, all the doors were like collapsing. In fact, glioblastoma patients usually do not live more than 20 months from the date of diagnosis.

Stuck, in May 2012, Stephanie accepted to be the first to test cancer treatment with an unexpected weapon: polio virus. Now, at age 27, she is still alive, has completed college, became a nurse and married; There is no sign that the tumor is likely to return.

The genetically altered virus is injected directly into the tumor to treat cancer.(Photo: Duke Health).

In The New England Journal of Medicine, Duke University team of scientists treated Stephanie to reveal that polio virus can attach to proteins on the surface of cancer cells. Taking advantage of this feature, they developed treatments by directly injecting polio virus that transformed non-pathogenic genes into brain tumors so they could attack cancer cells and activate the immune system to complete the task. .

"We believe the key point is a secondary immune response, " explained Dr. Darell Bigner, director of Duke University's Preston Robert Tisch Brain Cancer Center.

Preliminary research results on 61 patients demonstrated Stephanie's condition was not accidental or fortunate. Using polio virus, 21% of brain tumor patients survived after three years of treatment. If treated in the usual way, this rate is only 4%.

"I believe it is the best treatment , " Stephanie said of injecting polio virus. Currently, she lives happily without being abused by the disease. The only symptom left is seizures but can be controlled with medication.

In the next few weeks, Duke University will conduct a polio virus test for patients with breast cancer and skin cancer.