

Modified poliovirus used as therapy for brain tumor - chrisla
http://www.dukemedicine.org/blog/brain-tumor-research-featured-people-magazine

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ToastyMallows
Radiolab[0] had an episode a while back where they talked about Henry
Heimlich, inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver. During it they mention that Henry
advocated for Malariotherapy[1], infecting patient with Malaria to cure
diseases like AIDS/HIV.

It's highly controversial, but I thought it warranted being brought up because
it parallels this story.

[0]: [http://www.radiolab.org/story/heimlichs-
maneuver/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/heimlichs-maneuver/)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malariotherapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malariotherapy)

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tokenadult
This is an inspiring story. But "The full article is published in the May 5,
2014 issue of People magazine, and is available by subscription or for
purchase at the People magazine website" doesn't inspire confidence in the
treatment method, as that is not how clinical medical findings are peer-
reviewed. The submission kindly made here is a press release from a medical
school press office.

As I search the doctor's name on Google Scholar, I see that he has had various
journal publications on various aspects of investigating or treating brain
disease for a long time. His research into using polio viruses as agents for
treating tumors has attracted some notice in published books, but this is not
yet a mainstream treatment. It will be interesting to see if a larger number
of patients, seen by doctors other than Matthias Gromeier, also benefit
consistently from this kind of treatment, which is now experimental and
ethical to use in human subjects only in the most desperate cases.

~~~
ihnorton
This group's major peer-reviewed paper on the original murine xenograft work
appears to be:
[http://www.nature.com/mt/journal/v16/n11/full/mt2008184a.htm...](http://www.nature.com/mt/journal/v16/n11/full/mt2008184a.html)

 _Of course_ the human work will be peer-reviewed, but the study is in the
early stages and still ongoing. They have an IND (investigational drug)
protocol approved by the FDA to conduct the trial, and the trial is overseen
by panels at both the institutional and federal level.

The point of pieces like this is essentially to attract patients to the trial
(both directly and by making referral providers aware) so that the science
_can_ be validated. Perhaps surprisingly, there are a large number of active
trials in the country and relatively limited numbers of patients who meet
inclusion criteria. So to some degree the big centers have to compete for
enrollment. (secondarily, they hope to attract donors for future work in this
and other areas; this kind of risky pilot work is heavily seeded by
institutional money, before NIH will get involved)

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pseingatl
Friend of mine had Stage-IV melanoma and was told to write his will. He had an
experimental treatment where they gave him tuberculosis. The tuberculosis
"killed" the melanoma and then they treated the tuberculosis. He died ten
years later from a heart attack.

I understand this treatment has been discredited. Nice to see that someone is
pursuing this avenue again.

~~~
cmapes
My Dad died from metastatic stage-IV melanoma. The gene therapies (which were
extremely expensive) weren't effective beyond adding maybe an extra 6-8 weeks.

I'm interested if the tuberculosis actually "killed" the melanoma or if it
caused an unusually aggressive autoimmune response that happened to knock out
the melanoma. I'd like to see if there's a case study available on that
treatment method.

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cwh
Awesome.

I'm a patient at Duke's Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center and have heard
a lot about this.

I have Stage 3 Anaplastic Astrocytoma, had a very successful resection,
radiation -- both at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell, and am now
undergoing a long tail of Chemotherapy. It is nice to have the minds at Duke
in my 'back pocket' looking into all of this.

It's unfortunate that Brain Cancer treatments do not get as easily funded as
experiments for the much more common, even though what they want to do is
essentially the same -- eventually cure all.

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harrystone
This was done to a friend-of-a-friend of mine. When he was diagnosed he was
given 90 days. He lived 2 years so it was a win in my opinion. I believe he
thought so too.

~~~
jessriedel
Unfortunately, that doesn't really mean anything. Glioblastomas, like many
types of cancer, come in several different forms often depending on the
specific mutations that led to the cancer. The different forms have greatly
different behavior, and cause death on different time scales (e.g. there are
60-day forms and 5-year forms, and we can't yet distinguish them in a clinical
setting without watching them progress). Some of this uncertainty will soon be
eliminated by the widespread genetic sequencing of tumors.

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iskander
Immune therapy for cancer is very exciting right now: there are lots of
promising trials in the pipeline and cool papers coming out every month.

