HealthOnTrack

According to a new cancer trial, a harmless human virus that naturally occurs in the human body may be able to improve the effectiveness of two chemotherapy drugs in certain cancer patients. Early stage trial data recently published by Clinical Cancer Research showed that RT3D or Reolysin, a new cancer drug developed by Oncolytics Biotech Inc, had promising results in its preclinical and clinical studies conducted at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and the Royal Marsden Hospital. These two institutes are known worldwide for their expertise in clinical research assistant jobs. The drug is largely based on the reovirus type 3 Dearing that is found in most adult respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts.

The cancer clinical trial has shown that RT3D can grow inside certain types of cancer cells and kill the cell, however this behaviour pattern does not occur in normal cells. It was shown that the RT3D was most effective in platin and taxane-based chemotherapy on tumour cells.

The initial clinical trial started testing intravenous RT3D in combination with chemotherapeutics carboplatin and paclitaxel in thirty one advanced cancer patients who had stopped responding to regular treatments. In the first phase of the cancer trial the drug was shown to be safe with no significant side effects. Furthermore, patients with head and neck cancers responded best to the treatment. Overall, cancers were reduced by about a third in all patients and stabilised for a further third. Based on these results, the study is now recruiting for patients with head and neck cancers only to participate in an advanced phase cancer trial. Those in health economics jobs are confident about the clinical trial. If successful, it could help treat over 350,000 people that die from head and neck cancers annually.