Virus Might Help Brain Tumor Treatment

A common human virus might be useful in treating one of the deadliest forms of brain tumors, a U.S. study concluded.

Duke University researchers said the finding could lead to a vaccine that can attack brain tumors by enlisting the help of the body’s immune system.

Human cytomegalovirus is active in more than 90 percent of patients with glioblastoma multiforme, the most deadly type of brain tumor, said Dr. Duane Mitchell, the study’s lead investigator.

We don’t know if the virus plays a part in the growth of the brain tumors or whether the presence of the brain tumors leads to a reactivation of the virus, Mitchell said. But we do know the virus has the potential to affect the growth and invasiveness of cancer cells.

The researchers suggest a vaccine targeting the virus might be administered following chemotherapy. The immune system’s recovery from chemotherapy is marked by a regenerative burst of new immune cells, and the vaccine would take advantage of that reaction to effect an even stronger immune response to the virus, Mitchell said.

The research will appear in the February issue of the journal Neuro-Oncology and is already available at the journal’s Web site.