Radioactive Bacteria Attack Cancer 53
ananyo writes "Two dangerous things together might make a medicine for one of the hardest cancers to treat. In a mouse model of pancreatic cancer, researchers have shown that bacteria can deliver deadly radiation to tumours — exploiting the immune suppression that normally makes the disease so intractable. The researchers coated the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes with radioactive antibodies and injected the bacterium into mice with pancreatic cancer that had spread to multiple sites. After several doses, the mice that had received the radioactive bacteria had 90% fewer metastases compared with mice that had received saline or radiation alone."
So how do I pass these radioactive bacteria? (Score:4, Insightful)
Magically transport them to a parallel universe or pass them through me kidneys?
I've already been nuked, lymphnodes on my lower left side, so I'm a little aware of side effects and long term prospects (so far so good, touch wood) maybe if we could train bacteria which do not require bringing in radiation we'd really be on to something.
Still, it's progress.
Re:So how do I pass these radioactive bacteria? (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I understand the bacteria themselves aren't attacking the cancer.
The bacteria are being covered with radiation, most of the bacteria are quickly killed by the immune system and expelled from the body. But since the tumour suppresses immune activity the bacteria in the tumour last quite a bit longer and keep irradiating the tumour. So basically the bacteria are being used to deliver the radiation directly to the tumour.
So it sounds like there's no real way of getting around the radiation or radiating your kidneys to some extent. But if you have pancreatic cancer long term prospects probably aren't your primary concern :(
The other issue is that the other researchers in the article sounded a bit skeptical. It could be this is another example of a medical breakthrough in the headlines that doesn't pan out.
Re:Mutation danger? (Score:5, Insightful)
You could actually do the math for the mutation rate and the odds of a mutation being useful and weigh that against the odds of survival by the patient without the treatment. The math is probably not too bad and it is something that the scientists involved probably considered. Sure there is a non-zero chance of it happening but without this the odds of surviving pancreatic cancer is close to zero. I had a friend die from that one and it is definitely not the way you want to go. It is a very soft organ and VERY hard to treat with surgery, chemo or other drugs. It is one of the hardest to treat cancers we know of. So this kind of treatment is better than what we have even if it could mutate into something and kill you.