New cancer treatment being tested at University of Washington
Jan 30, 2012, 5:25 AM | Updated: 9:34 am
Imagine fighting cancer without all the energy-draining side effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
The University of Washington and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance are working on a clinical trial for a new way to get tumor-killing drugs into the body.
Cancer treatments today bombard the body with poison, trying to kill the cancer from the outside in, but they kill a lot of good cells in the process. This trial will target a deadly skin cancer using electricity. The charge is used to open the tumor cells enough that the drugs can get inside and kill the tumor from the inside out.
The drugs carry DNA that stimulates the body’s own immune system to fight the cancer. It also stimulates a systemic response that triggers cancer fighting throughout the body.
“We’re asking the body to go ahead and just produce something the body already naturally produces but is often surpressed,” said Punit Dhillon, President and CEO of OncoSec Medical which developed this electricity-based delivery system.
The idea is to kill the tumors from the inside out, instead of bombarding the body with poison to kill the cancer from the outside in.
The clinical trial will eventually use 15 patients suffering from Merkel cell carcinoma. It is a rare but very deadly form of skin cancer. It is set to begin this spring.
