New treatment can destroy prostate cancer from within

New treatment can destroy prostate cancer from within. A `Trojan´ system developed by researchers at the Universities of Sheffield and York attacks cancerous cells from within and potentially offers a safer treatment for prostate tumours. The technique involves the use of a patient´s own white blood cells called macrophages to deliver an oncolytic viruses to tumours that is tailored specifically to grow in and destroy the cancer cells. In this approach macrophages are infected to create a `virus factory´ that produces large amounts of the cancer-dissolving viruses inside the cancer itself. The findings are published in the latest edition of the US journal Cancer Research. Up to now, the use of oncolytic viruses in cancer patients has been restricted by the need to inject large amounts of virus to produce the saturation coverage required at small tumour sites outside the prostate. However Dr Munitta Muthana and Professor Claire Lewis from the University of Sheffield´s Department of Infection and Immunity, developed ways of infecting the patients´ own macrophages with a prostate cancer-specific oncolytic virus.