• 2/18/2005
  • Houston, TX
  • The Herald Democrat (www.heralddemocrat.com)

A mostly harmless virus could play a vital role in the treatment of a certain form of throat cancer, according to researchers whose findings are published online at the website for Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology.

Carried in 90 percent of all people, the Epstein-Barr virus was recently found to produce antigens that may help patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a form of throat cancer common in North Africa and Southeast Asia. The discovery was made by researchers at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), The Methodist Hospital and Texas Children’s Hospital, all in Houston.

“Radiation and chemotherapy, the traditional treatments for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, frequently fail and can cause severe long-term side effects,” said Dr. Helen Heslop, professor of medicine and pediatrics at BCM as well as senior study author. “The results of this study demonstrate that these virus-specific T cells have activity in some patients with this cancer.”

In the study, patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma were given intravenous doses of specialized T cells that specifically targeted antigens produced by the Epstein-Barr virus, a member of the herpes family responsible for mononucleosis and commonly associated with this cancer’s tumors.

“There was a compelling need for therapies that could improve disease-free survival without severe toxicity,” said Heslop.

Six patients remain completely disease-free one to two years after the treatment. Two patients showed no response to the treatment.