Well, This Is What I Think

A Mayo Clinic trial has made a breakthrough in the fight against cancer, with more trials to come.

A dose of 100 billion units of measles – enough to inoculate 10 million people – has successfully knocked widespread blood cancer into remission, says a groundbreaking new test from the Mayo Clinic.Having been through chemotherapy treatments and two stem cell transplants, 50-year-old Stacy Erholtz was running out options in her battle against myeloma, a blood cancer that affects bone marrow, when scans showed she had tumours growing throughout her body.

As part of a radically new two-patient clinical trial, doctors at the Mayo Clinic injected Erholtz with the measles vaccine, with an immediate reaction.

 

 

Five minutes into the hour-long process, Erholtz got a terrible headache. Two hours later, she started shaking and vomiting. Her temperature hit 41 degrees, Stephen Russell, the lead researcher on the case, told The Washington Post.

Evan – the name given to the tumour on Erholtz’s forehead by her children – began to shrink within 36 hours. Over several weeks, the tumour – and the accompanying tumours spreading throughout her body – disappeared. Evan was no more.

The viruses succeeded by binding to cancer cells and using them to replicate. The process destroys the cells, and the body’s immune system attacks what’s left since it’s marked as viral material. This test also gave doctors a benchmark for the virus dose needed to reduce cancer in patients — 100 billion infectious units instead of the standard 10,000 units.

Although Erholtz has been completely cleared of the disease, there are still potential hurdles to overcome. Now that her immune system has experience fighting the measles virus, the treatment wouldn’t be as effective a second time ; the body would attack the virus before it could take over the cancer cells.

The treatment wasn’t successful in the second patient. While Erholtz’s tumours were mostly in her bone marrow, the other patient’s tumours were mainly in her leg muscles, the Star-Tribune reported. Russell said more research is needed to know how the nature of the tumour affects the virus.

The next step for this method is another clinical trial, which is expected to launch by September, to see if the massive measles dose works on a large number of patients.

As for Erholtz, her next step is an annual checkup next month, but she’s optimistic.

“We don’t let the cancer cloud hang over our house, let’s put it that way, or we would have lived in the dark the last 10 years,” Erholtz told the Star Tribune.

Wellthisiswhatithink says: Let’s hope that this might be a major step forward in our understanding of how to treat this illness which strikes terror into so many. Humankind has beaten killer illnesses before, and there’s no fundamental reason why we can’t beat cancer … Alzheimer’s … HIV.

Let us also salute those patients who have the courage to accept experimental treatment from scientists and medicos, with no guarantee of success. It’s too easy for us to dismiss the role they play with “well, what else are they going to do?”: the answer is, they could choose a less disruptive and more peaceful route towards the end of their lives. In undergoing what can be disturbing and distressing treatment with no certainty of success they demonstrate not only their own personal determination, but they also blaze a course for the rest of us. We owe them our gratitude.