Polio Virus May Help Cure Glioblastomas

Could the polio virus cure brain cancer?

Matthias Gromeier, M.D. has been working with the virus to cure it for the past 25 years.

As brain cancer is among one of the most devastating types due to its increasing fatality of the patient with each passing day, research scientists at Duke University have been carrying out the idea that the virus could work to help patients with glioblastomas.

For the past seven years of Gromeier's research, he's conducted safety trials with monkeys to thoroughly test the information. Out of the 39 subjects, none developed polio. In 2011, the FDA then allowed the first clinical trial on people, with Stephanie Lipscomb as the first participant.

A 20-year-old at the time, she had a glioblastoma, otherwise known as a malignant brain tumor that was the size of a tennis ball during her first diagnosis. Doctors gave Lipscomb just months to live.

While chemotherapy treatments shrank 98 percent of her tumor, the cancer came back in 2012; that's when she enrolled in the clinical trial testing the polio virus' effect on glioblastoma.

Patients were administered a teaspoonful of the polio virus directly on their tumors. To do that, researchers said it took about six and a half hours. Furthermore, extensive surgery requires that none of the virus reaches other areas of their brain.

According to Gromeier, the treatment works by tearing away protective layers that shield cancer cells from the body's immune system. When the cancer cells are infected with the virus, the body's immune system is signaled, showing that something's wrong. Then, cancer cells are vulnerable to attack and the immune system invades the other cells, fighting them off.

"To work against cancers in patients, oncolytic viruses must target cancer cells for infection and they must kill them. At the same time, they must be safe," researchers noted. "Accomplishing this is very difficult scientifically and only very few viruses are suitable as cancer-fighting agents in the clinic."

Lipscomb, who is now cancer-free three years after her first shot, has helped researchers gained the knowledge to make a decision if the treatment should be given "breakthrough status" and made available for patients dealing with the health issue sooner.