Many Years Young: Can Bacteria Fight Brain Cancer?

(Nature) Glioblastoma is an aggressive brain cancer and is usually treated with surgery, as well as with radiation and chemotherapy. However, the cancer almost always recurs after surgery. Half of patients die within 15 months of diagnosis; fewer than one in twenty lives longer than five years?

There are isolated reports of patients with various types of cancer successfully fighting off an infection only to find that the cancer has also disappeared. Presumably, the infection spurs white blood cells to attack both pathogens and malignant cells? [There are] clinical trials studying whether an immune response can fight cancer [but] rather than infecting patients with active microbes, these studies use therapeutic?vaccines. The first cancer-treatment vaccine, Provenge, for prostate cancer, was approved in 2010 but is still controversial.

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Source: http://www.manyyearsyoung.com/2012/07/can-bacteria-fight-brain-cancer.html

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