Raphael ThysRendering of oncolytic virus immunotherapy, in which viruses attack and kill tumor cells.
hen breast oncologists see new patients, one of their hopes is that the patient doesn’t have triple-negative breast cancer. The subtype is considered particularly dangerous, as it tends to grow and spread more aggressively than other types, and it has fewer effective treatment options. But a small new study suggests that help might come from an engineered virus.
In a Phase 2 trial, published in Nature Medicine on Thursday, injecting early-stage triple-negative tumors with a cancer-killing virus called T-VEC, made by Amgen, during chemotherapy before surgery seems to result in improved survival compared to chemotherapy alone, said Hatem Soliman, a breast medical oncologist at the Moffitt Cancer Center and the lead author on the study.