Good news for terminal cancer patients

At the International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference held in New York, USA, scientists from the University of Texas proposed a cancer treatment that can be safe without causing infection or gas gangrene for patients with late-stage drug-resistant cancer.

The report suggests that scientists will inject a type of gangrene-causing bacteria, called C. novyi-NT (Clostridium novyi-NT), into patients who have failed all other treatments.

The potentially deadly bacteria were modified by researchers to be less harmful before being injected into the tumour. They need a very low oxygen environment (found in tumours) to survive, which means they won’t grow and harm healthy tissue in the body.

Of the 24 patients injected with the bacteria, 15 had sarcoma, 7 had carcinoma, and 2 had melanoma, all of whom had solid tumors resistant to treatment.

In trials, doses ranged from 10,000 to 3 million bacterial spores. The one million spores dose worked best for patients. Two patients who received the largest dose developed severe infections and gas gangrene.

In these patients, the tumors rapidly necrosed and shrank when the bacteria were injected. Results showed that the tumor size decreased by more than 10% in 22 patients.

"By exploiting inherent differences between healthy and cancerous tissues, C. novyi-NT is a very effective anti-cancer therapy that can specifically attack cancer cells," said Dr. Filip Janku of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

In their trials, Dr. Janku and his colleagues were primarily interested in finding out what dose could be safely administered to patients. Even when the spores did not grow, due to oxygen levels or other conditions, the presence of these bacterial spores helped trigger immune cells to wake up and attack the tumor.

“From these preliminary results, it appears that C. novyi-NT may trigger an immune response beyond tumor destruction,” Dr. Janku emphasized.

This bacteriostatic therapy is clinically significant, especially when combined with other suppressive approaches, for patients with limited treatment options.