Even with the most sophisticated therapies, aggressive glioblastoma tumors typically come roaring back months later. Surgeons are often unable to remove the entire tumor, and immune cells in brain tumors are often suppressed, keeping them from responding effectively to immunotherapies.1 But a new strategy may heat up these immunologically cold tumors to make them more susceptible to immunotherapy.
Researchers have engineered harmless oncolytic viruses that can trick the immune system into launching a response.2 This strategy can be combined with existing immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibition, for a potent two-stage attack: first, the virus attracts immune cells to the brain, then checkpoint inhibitors help these cells kill tumor cells. A recently published phase 1/2 clinical trial in Nature Medicine shows that this combination may be able to penetrate glioblastomas’ defenses.3
In this study, patients were treated with a combination of the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab and an oncolytic virus ...
