Attacking Virus to Cure Cancer

Study indicates cancer could be treated by attacking viruses which cause it.

"U.S. researchers have shown that some cancers can be successfully treated by targeting the viruses that cause them," according to a study published in the journal PloS One.

Investigators "at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York used radioimmunotherapy, in which radioisotopes are piggybacked onto antibodies," and then injected the molecules "into the body." Once there, "the antibodies target a specific protein, and destroy the cell to which the protein is attached."

"This novel approach is important to note because nearly 20 percent of human cancers worldwide are caused by preexisting virus infections," including "liver cancer (caused by hepatitis B and C viruses), cervical cancer (caused by human papillomaviruses), and certain lymphomas (caused by the Epstein-Barr virus)."

This "study has shown in principle that radioimmunotherapy can help" to treat "cancers caused by viruses," and to prevent cancer.