10 november 2024: Hier enkele artikelen op kanker-actueel.nl met in de titel oncolytisch virus. https://kanker-actueel.nl/search.html?search_text=oncolytisch+virus&search_in=title

10 november 2024: Bron: Nature. (Met dank aan Pieter dit me dit artikel toestuurde)

In Nature verscheen 8 november een bijzonder verhaal van borstkankerpatiënte en wetenschapster Beate Halassy (inmiddels 53 jaar) als commentaar op een eerder in Vaccines gepubliceerd case studierapport.

Nadat in 2020 bij Beate Halassy een recidief werd gezien op de plaats van waar twee jaar daarvoor haar borst was geamputeerd (mastectomy) maakte / moduleerde ze in haar eigen laboratorium aan de universiteit van Zagreb twee oncolytische virussen die bij andere vormen van kanker of als vaccin bij kinderen veilig en succesvol waren toegediend.

Naast een gemoduleerd mazelenvirus maakte ze ook het Vesiculair Stomatitis Virus (VSV-GP) en een collega van Beate Halassy injecteerde beide virussen bij haar in 2020 in de hoop dat er een immuunreactie zou ontstaan. En dat gebeurde zonder noemenswaardige bijwerkingen en nu november 2024 is zij inmiddels ruim vier jaar kankervrij.
Het mooie is ook dat zowel niet hormonale als wel hormonale borstkanker op immuuntherapie met gebruik van oncolytische virussen uitstekend reageren.

Uit het artikel in Nature is onderstaande vertaald:

Van beide pathogenen is bekend dat ze het type cel infecteren waaruit haar tumor is ontstaan, en ze zijn al eerder gebruikt in klinische oncolytische virusstudies. Een mazelenvirus is eerder in studieverband getest tegen uitgezaaide borstkanker.
Halassy had eerdere ervaring met beide virussen, en beide hebben een goede veiligheidsreputatie met nagenoeg geen bijwerkingen.
De mazelenstam die zij koos, wordt veel gebruikt in kindervaccins, en de stam van het Vesiculair Stomatitis Virus (VSV-GP) veroorzaakt in het ergste geval milde griepachtige symptomen.

De behandeling verliep als volgt:

Gedurende een periode van twee maanden diende een collega een behandelingsregime toe met onderzoeksmateriaal dat vers door Halassy was bereid en rechtstreeks in haar tumor werd geïnjecteerd. Haar oncologen stemden ermee in haar tijdens de zelfbehandeling te monitoren, zodat ze kon overschakelen op conventionele chemotherapie als er iets misging.

De aanpak leek effectief: in de loop van de behandeling, en zonder ernstige bijwerkingen, kromp de tumor aanzienlijk en werd zachter. Hij liet ook los van de borstspier en de huid die hij was binnengedrongen, waardoor hij gemakkelijk operatief kon worden verwijderd.

Analyse van de tumor na verwijdering toonde aan dat deze grondig was geïnfiltreerd met immuuncellen, lymfocyten genaamd, wat suggereert dat de OVT had gewerkt zoals verwacht en Halassy's immuunsysteem had aangezet om zowel de virussen als de tumorcellen aan te vallen. "Er werd zeker een immuunreactie opgewekt", zegt Halassy. Na de operatie kreeg ze een jaar lang een behandeling met het antikankermedicijn trastuzumab.

Beate heeft heel veel moeite moeten doen om een medisch tijdschrift zover te krijgen dat zij deze case studie wilden publiceren. De meeste medische tijdschriften wezen haar case studierapport af om ethische redenen. Uiteindelijk vond ze het medisch tijdschrift vaccines bereid haar studie te publiceren.

Hier volgen twee studierapporten. Als eerste het artikel uit Nature d.d. 8 november 2024. Daarna het abstract van het originele case studierapport uit Vaccines.

Virologist Beata Halassy says self-treatment worked and was a positive experience — but researchers warn that it is not something others should try.

This scientist treated her own cancer with viruses she grew in the lab

Virologist Beata Halassy says self-treatment worked and was a positive experience — but researchers warn that it is not something others should try.

Zoe Corbyn

A scientist who successfully treated her own breast cancer by injecting the tumour with lab-grown viruses has sparked discussion about the ethics of self-experimentation.

Beata Halassy discovered in 2020, aged 49, that she had breast cancer at the site of a previous mastectomy. It was the second recurrence there since her left breast had been removed, and she couldn’t face another bout of chemotherapy.

Halassy, a virologist at the University of Zagreb, studied the literature and decided to take matters into her own hands with an unproven treatment.

A case report published in Vaccines in August1 outlines how Halassy self-administered a treatment called oncolytic virotherapy (OVT) to help treat her own stage 3 cancer. She has now been cancer-free for four years.

In choosing to self-experiment, Halassy joins a long line of scientists who have participated in this under-the-radar, stigmatized and ethically fraught practice. “It took a brave editor to publish the report,” says Halassy.>>>>>>>>>reed more

An Unconventional Case Study of Neoadjuvant Oncolytic Virotherapy for Recurrent Breast Cancer

Dubravko Forčić

1,2,†,

Karmen Mršić

3,†,

Melita Perić-Balja
4,Tihana Kurtović1,2

Snježana Ramić

Tajana Silovski

Ivo Pedišić

Ivan Milas

and

Beata Halassy

1,2,*

Centre for Research and Knowledge Transfer in Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Centre of Excellence for Virus Immunology and Vaccines, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Clinical Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Centre Sestre Milosrdnice, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Clinical Department of Pathology and Cytology “Ljudevit Jurak”, University Hospital Centre Sestre Milosrdnice, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Department of Oncology, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Radiochirurgia Zagreb, 10431 Sveta Nedelja, Croatia

University Hospital for Tumors, University Hospital Centre Sestre Milosrdnice, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

†

These authors contributed equally to this work and share first authorship.

Vaccines 2024, 12(9), 958; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines12090958

Submission received: 24 July 2024 / Revised: 20 August 2024 / Accepted: 21 August 2024 / Published: 23 August 2024

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Cancer Vaccines as Promising Immuno-Therapeutics)

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Abstract

Intratumoural oncolytic virotherapy may have promise as a means to debulk and downstage inoperable tumours in preparation for successful surgery. Here, we describe the unique case of a 50-year-old self-experimenting female virologist with locally recurrent muscle-invasive breast cancer who was able to proceed to simple, non-invasive tumour resection after receiving multiple intratumoural injections of research-grade virus preparations, which first included an Edmonston-Zagreb measles vaccine strain (MeV) and then a vesicular stomatitis virus Indiana strain (VSV), both prepared in her own laboratory. The intratumoural virus therapy was well tolerated. Frequent imaging studies and regular clinical observations documenting size, consistency and mobility of the injected tumour demonstrate that both the MeV- and VSV-containing parts of the protocol contributed to the overall favourable response. Two months after the start of the virus injections, the shrunken tumour was no longer invading the skin or underlying muscle and was surgically excised. The excised tumour showed strong lymphocytic infiltration, with an increase in CD20-positive B cells, CD8-positive T cells and macrophages. PD-L1 expression was detected in contrast to the baseline PD-L1-negative phenotype. The patient completed one-year trastuzumab adjuvant therapy and remains well and recurrence-free 45 months post-surgery. Although an isolated case, it encourages consideration of oncolytic virotherapy as a neoadjuvant treatment modality.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/vaccines12090958/s1.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: B.H. and D.F. Investigation, Methodology, Data Acquisition and analysis, Resources: D.F., K.M., M.P.-B., T.K., S.R., I.M., T.S., I.P. and B.H. Resources: D.F., K.M., M.P.-B., T.S., I.P. and I.M.; Funding acquisition: B.H. and D.F. Supervision: B.H. Writing—original draft: B.H. Writing—review and editing: all authors. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The research was funded by the European Regional Development Fund, grant number KK.01.1.1.01.0006, “Strengthening the capacity of CERVirVac for research in virus immunology and vaccinology” and by the European Union NextGenerationEU mechanism, grant number NPOO.C3.2.R3-I1.02.0045, “Development of a prototype oncolytic preparation of the vesicular stomatitis virus”.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This is a case of self-experimentation. As such, it does not require ethics committee review [33,34,35]. The study was feasible only due to the unique situation in which the patient was also an expert virologist. The patient was fully aware of her illness as well as of available therapies, and as a scientist in the field of virology, she was aware of the potential of oncolytic virotherapy. After two recurrences of the same tumour, she wanted to try an innovative approach in a scientifically sound way. Her oncologists (the leading oncologists in Croatia for breast cancer) accepted to monitor the progress of the treatment, primarily with the aim of discontinuing the injections and intervening with conventional therapy if there were untoward effects or if the tumour progressed.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from the subject involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The data supporting the findings reported in this study are available within the manuscript and Supplemental Information. The tumour samples could be obtained upon reasonable request.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Stephen J. Russell for his critical reading of the manuscript and constructive discussion. The Edmonston-Zagreb vaccine strain (working seed lot) was provided from Institute of Immunology Inc., Croatia. The authors thank Marija Fitz for proofreading and editing the manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

BH has become a consultant of Vyriad in 2021. The work described in this paper contains the subject matter of European patent application No. PCT/EP2021/080992 filed on 8 November 2021. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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