Measles virus used to put woman’s cancer into remission

Doctors say that a woman with incurable cancer is now in remission. They said that concentrated doze of Measles virus has worked impressively in her case. Stacy Erholtz the 29-year old patient has been struggling against multiple myeloma a dangerous type of blood cancer since the last 10 years. Doctors of the Mayo clinic claim that “we had given her every type of chemotherapy drug made for her cancer but that did not work”.

It goes without saying that a team of researchers injected her and five other multiple myeloma patients a concentrated doze of measles virus – enough to vaccinate approximately 10 million people. Dr. Stephen Russell said that “we can train a virus to damage cancer not other tissues of the body”.

Actually, this therapy is called as virotherapy. Scientists have been using viruses to combat cancer since a long time but this is for the first time that the cancer patient – whose cancer has been spread throughout the body- go into remission. Stacy Erholtz has been declared cancer free for 9 months.

Dr. Stephen Russell said that “we have succeeded because we have increased the amount of doze”. Furthermore, Mayo Clinic researcher Dr. Angela Dispenzieri added that “the measles virus joins with cancer cells in the body and explode”.

Last but not the least doctors said that this treatment is passing through the testing phase and it will take time to be grossly used as a declared treatment of blood cancer.