Medical Edge Newspaper Column

Technique Destroys Cancer Cells that Spread from Primary Tumors

March 6, 2008
READERS:
An international team of researchers led by Mayo Clinic recently designed a technique that uses the body's own cells and a virus to destroy cancer cells that spread from primary tumors to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system. In addition, the team's research indicates that this technology could be the basis for a new cancer vaccine to prevent cancer recurrence.

The technology combines the body's infection-fighting T-cells (lymphocytes) with a virus (vesicular stomatitis virus) that targets and destroys cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. T-cells are removed, loaded with the virus and then returned to the patient. When the T-cells reach the lymph nodes and the spleen, the virus detaches itself and finds the cancer cells. The procedure used in the study also triggered an immune response to the cancer cells, which means the technology could be used to develop a cancer vaccine.

"We hope to translate these results into clinical trials. However, until those trials are done, it's difficult to be certain that what we see in mouse models will clearly translate to humans. We're hopeful that will be the case," says Richard Vile, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic specialist in molecular medicine and immunology and the study's principal investigator.

In primary cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, head and neck and skin, the growth of secondary tumors often pose the most threat to patients, not the primary tumor. The prognosis for these patients often depends upon the degree of lymph node involvement and whether the cancer has spread.