Optimising measles virus-guided radiovirotherapy with external beam radiotherapy and specific checkpoint kinase 1 inhibition

EBRT is confined to normal tissue tols. in this study, the authors combined a virus that targets cancer cells and kills them. they linked the virus with an isotope that together with teh replicating virus, drives the uptake of therapeutic radioisotopes. This approach involves infecting cancer cells with viruses that mediate tumour-specific radioisotope uptake to deliver selective, highly conformal escalation of local dose delivery. THey also used a DNA damage blocker to stop the cancer cells using a repair pathway if they were infected with the radiovirus. together with EBRT, the dose is taken up by the isotope which is inside the cancer cell- dose escalation to just the cells that are infected with the virus ---> cancer cells authours conc "We have shown that combining NIS-expressing oncolytic measles virus, radioiodide, EBRT and Chk1 inhibition yields impressive in vitro and in vivo activities. Clinical translation of this approach represents an attractive way of delivering highly conformal radiation boosts to improve tumour control without increasing normal tissue toxicity." the combination was tested in cell cultures of head and neck cancer and colorectal carcinoma, and was found to deliver more radiation to the cancer cells than using any of the four treatments separately. ref Ouchefeu Y, Khan A, Borst G, Zaidi SH, McLaughlin M, Roulstone V, et al. Optimising measles virus-guided radiovirotherapy with external beam radiotherapy and specific checkpoint kinase 1 inhibition. Radiother Oncol2013, doi:10.1016/j.radonc.2013.05.036.