In a breakthrough that could offer new hope to people with some kinds of cancer, Mayo Clinic researchers say they managed to wipe out a woman’s cancer with a blast of measles vaccine strong enough to inoculate 10 million people.
The 50-year-old woman’s blood cancer, which had spread through her body, went into complete remission after the vaccine dose and Stacy Erholtz has been clear of the disease for more than six months.
“It’s a landmark,” lead researcher Dr. Stephen Russell tells the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “We’ve known for a long time that we can give a virus intravenously and destroy metastatic cancer in mice. Nobody’s shown that you can do that in people before.” And Erholtz’s take on the approach is more than positive: “It was the easiest treatment by far with very few side effects. I hope it’s the future of treating cancer infusion.” The trial involved two patients with multiple myeloma, and the second failed to go into complete remission, with the cancer returning after nine months.
Read the full, original story: Woman’s cancer wiped out … by measles virus
