"Trojan horse" cancer therapy is a new experimental type of therapy which British researchers and scientists say have "completely eliminated" cancer in mice. The team believes the cancer-fighting viruses could possibly cure or eliminate prostate cancer cells in human beings.
According to a MyFox8, UK scientists are celebrating another milestone in the fight to find effective drugs or treatments for men suffering from prostate malignancies.
The "Trojan Horse", the tale from the Trojan War about the subterfuge the Greeks used to enter the city of Troy and end the conflict, is similar to how the Trojan horse cancer therapy works. Researchers at Sheffield University in South Yorkshire, England used macrophages, one of the body's immune system cells, as a carrier for a virus. Once inside, the cells infiltrated the cancerous tumor and the virus began to spread and attack the cancerous cells, BBC News reports.
The title of the study is: "Macrophage Delivery of an Oncolytic Virus Abolishes Tumor Regrowth and Metastasis After Chemotherapy or Irradiation."
Scientists in the study "Trojan-horse" cancer viruses treated a group of mice for 40 days. At the end of the treatment phase, all mice in the experimental group were alive and their tumors were gone. On the other hand, other mice treated in other methods were either dead or suffering from metastasis.
"It demonstrates that this innovative method of delivering a tumor-killing virus direct to the cancer site is successful at reducing the development of advanced prostate tumors in mice which have been treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy," said Dr Kate Holmes, head of research at Prostate Cancer UK
"If this treatment goes on to be successful in human trials, it could mark substantial progress in finding better treatments for men with prostate cancer which has spread to the bone."
