3 ms·

My biology teacher knew a guy who did this to cure his wife's cancer, and that was back in 2008. How bizarre that this hasn't become a standard treatment after

My biology teacher knew a guy who did this to cure his wife's cancer, and that was back in 2008. How bizarre that this hasn't become a standard treatment after all this time.

goda90 2y ago
It's likely that sometimes it goes poorly in bigger sample sizes. Maybe the viruses have a chance of causing a cytokine storm which can kill the patient.
- gpm 2y ago
  There's a long history of OVT clinical trials, if someone's bored and interested they could try tracking down why they (mostly*) failed. See table 1 for a list (as of 2021, probably incomplete) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7913179/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7913179/ * As the article points out, there is one approved OVT therapy.
sidewndr46 2y ago
wouldn't that almost certainly be a crime if in the US?
- vikramkr 2y ago
  In the US? No you can do pretty much whatever you want here.
  - sidewndr46 2y ago
    To yourself? Mostly. Manufacture and possession of restricted substances is illegal, but administration of them to yourself is not illegal. In other words, being high in your own home isn't illegal. But if you administer them to someone else it could be considered commerce which is under the purview of the government. Even growing corn on your own land to feed to your own pigs is considered commerce according to SCOTUS
hello_computer 2y ago
It’s even older than that. Much older. Wikipedia “Coley’s Toxins”.
vikramkr 2y ago
There are a couple OVTs that are approved by the FDA and it's a rather active area of research. One of many in the recent explosion of biological cancer treatments (immunitherapies/cell therapies, etc etc). With any cancer treatment the exact same procedure will struggle to generalize well across cancer types and you have to regulate for safety and efficacy rather strongly. Especially when the treatment is lab grown measles or herpes virus strains that are genetically engineered. wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncolytic_virus
- ethbr1 2y ago
  > With any cancer treatment the exact same procedure will struggle to generalize well across cancer types As someone with family members living with cancer, modern genetic sequencing has been the biggest surprise. Not that we could sequence tumors, but that we could do so at scale and classify therapies by effectiveness against specific mutations (in general, even ignoring targeted therapies). Widespread cancer sequencing seems like the missing link to promote better outcomes, particularly in metastatic cases.
  - vikramkr 2y ago
    It's already an importany part of diagnostics and treatment! A lot of therapies are approved not just for specific cancers but for specific cancers with specific mutations. As with everything cancer it turned out to be more complicated than expected (not surprising given that it's essentially an outcome from chaotic uncontrolled genetic mutation and evolution) but sequencing progressing at like an order of magnitude faster than Moore's law and better understanding of all the -omics is making a dent
    - snowwrestler 2y ago
      Yes, when a family member was fighting metastatic pancreatic cancer, their doctor had a tumor biopsied and sequenced to see if they could try one of the new immunotherapies. Sadly no, and I learned that only a small percentage of hard cancers are yet treatable that way (which still helps a significant total number of people though).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

My biology teacher knew a guy who did this to cure his wife's cancer, and that was back in 2008. How bizarre that this hasn't become a standard treatment after all this time.

goda90 2y ago

It's likely that sometimes it goes poorly in bigger sample sizes. Maybe the viruses have a chance of causing a cytokine storm which can kill the patient.

gpm 2y ago
There's a long history of OVT clinical trials, if someone's bored and interested they could try tracking down why they (mostly*) failed. See table 1 for a list (as of 2021, probably incomplete) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7913179/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7913179/ * As the article points out, there is one approved OVT therapy.

sidewndr46 2y ago

wouldn't that almost certainly be a crime if in the US?

vikramkr 2y ago
In the US? No you can do pretty much whatever you want here.
- sidewndr46 2y ago
  To yourself? Mostly. Manufacture and possession of restricted substances is illegal, but administration of them to yourself is not illegal. In other words, being high in your own home isn't illegal. But if you administer them to someone else it could be considered commerce which is under the purview of the government. Even growing corn on your own land to feed to your own pigs is considered commerce according to SCOTUS

hello_computer 2y ago

It’s even older than that. Much older. Wikipedia “Coley’s Toxins”.

vikramkr 2y ago

There are a couple OVTs that are approved by the FDA and it's a rather active area of research. One of many in the recent explosion of biological cancer treatments (immunitherapies/cell therapies, etc etc). With any cancer treatment the exact same procedure will struggle to generalize well across cancer types and you have to regulate for safety and efficacy rather strongly. Especially when the treatment is lab grown measles or herpes virus strains that are genetically engineered. wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncolytic_virus

ethbr1 2y ago
> With any cancer treatment the exact same procedure will struggle to generalize well across cancer types As someone with family members living with cancer, modern genetic sequencing has been the biggest surprise. Not that we could sequence tumors, but that we could do so at scale and classify therapies by effectiveness against specific mutations (in general, even ignoring targeted therapies). Widespread cancer sequencing seems like the missing link to promote better outcomes, particularly in metastatic cases.
- vikramkr 2y ago
  It's already an importany part of diagnostics and treatment! A lot of therapies are approved not just for specific cancers but for specific cancers with specific mutations. As with everything cancer it turned out to be more complicated than expected (not surprising given that it's essentially an outcome from chaotic uncontrolled genetic mutation and evolution) but sequencing progressing at like an order of magnitude faster than Moore's law and better understanding of all the -omics is making a dent
  - snowwrestler 2y ago
    Yes, when a family member was fighting metastatic pancreatic cancer, their doctor had a tumor biopsied and sequenced to see if they could try one of the new immunotherapies. Sadly no, and I learned that only a small percentage of hard cancers are yet treatable that way (which still helps a significant total number of people though).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]