CANCER and POLIO
CANCER and POLIO
The following is an excerpt from an email received from one of my wonderful inlaws, Eileen Gavin McKenna. (The outlaws are pretty great too!) Given the Rotary focus on Polio eradication, it is quite amazing to find such encouraging results from a different perspective in the battle to cure cancer.
For those of you who may not have seen 60 Minutes this past Sunday, there were two segments about a groundbreaking Phase I (human safety) study using a modified polio virus injection into a particularly aggressive (and heretofore incurable) brain tumor called glioblastoma in a number of patients. Amazing results in some patients, and early lab research is providing great hope for many other types of cancers as well (including lung, pancreatic, prostate and breast tumors). You can watch the segments online, if interested (two parts):
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/polio-cancer-treatment-duke-university-60-minutes-scott-pelley/ .
...particularly like the way the researchers are harnessing the body’s own immune system in eradicating the cancer, and using a method that targets the cancer cells without harming the healthy ones. Far preferable to the present-day radiation and chemo. Much more research still to be (and being) done, but always good to have hope. Very exciting!
Those who might want more background info and a critique of the program may check out:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/BrainCancer/50728 .
Wishing all of you good health.
Thank you Eileen!