Measles virus derivatives boon for prostate cancer
Measles virus derivatives boon for prostate cancer
Washington (IANS): Certain measles virus vaccine strain derivatives can effectively infect and kill prostate cancer cells.
Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths among American men with an estimated 186,320 new cases and 28,660 deaths in 2008.
A sizeable proportion of these patients ultimately relapse, with a five-year failure rate for treatment ranging from 14 to 34 percent. No curative therapy is currently available for locally advanced or metastatic prostate cancer.
The median survival time of mice treated with a virus derivative MV-CEA in the study almost doubled compared to the controls, and complete tumour regression was observed in a fifth of the treated animals.
"Based on our preclinical results as well as the safety of measles derivatives in clinical trials against other tumour types, these viral strains could represent excellent candidates for clinical testing against advanced prostate cancer, including androgen resistant tumours," said Evanthia Galanis, Mayo Clinic, senior author of the study.
The measles vaccine strains also have an excellent safety record with millions of vaccine doses having been safely administered in over 40 years of use, said a Mayo clinic release.
The new study appeared in The Prostate.
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