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An inducible, tumor-localized gene therapy has been tested for the first time in glioblastoma patients. The two-part approach, which involves receiving an injection of an immune-activator gene into the brain tumor site and swallowing a pill that switches on the gene, resulted in the production of the activator—interleukin 12 (IL-12)—and an infiltration of immune cells into tumor tissue, according to a report in Science Translational Medicine today (August 14). The results also hint that patients’ survival may be prolonged by the treatment.
“All the recent evidence suggests that if you can really get the immune system to attack a tumor, then you have increased potential to cure that tumor, and this [work] is moving in that direction,” says neurosurgeon Frederick Lang of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who was not involved with the project. “I think that makes it exciting.”
Glioblastoma ...
