Reolysin

A fellow Synovial Sarcoma caregiver told me about Reolysin. It's a pretty interesting drug. It's a live virus that doesn't do a lot of harm to normal cells. The basic idea is that cancer cells are deficient in their ability to combat this virus, whereas normal cells are not. Thus, the virus multiplies rapidly in cancer cells, eventually killing them. The good thing about it is it claims to have very little side effects. 

In June of 2008, Oncolytics Biotech released results of a small phase II study showing 50% of their patients achieved stable disease ranging from 2-10 months. Excerpts below: 

"The interim results demonstrate that the treatment has been well tolerated
to date, with 8 of 16 evaluable patients experiencing stable disease for
periods ranging from two to more than ten, 28-day cycles. As previously
announced by Oncolytics, the third patient treated in the study was
demonstrated to have stable disease by RECIST criteria for more than six
months as measured by CT scan. A PET scan taken at the same time showed that any residual mass was metabolically inert".

 These results look pretty encouraging. Definitely have to keep an eye on this one. In particular, one of the patients showed stable disease for 6 months and scans showed the existing tumor to be metabolically inert.

Read more about it here at:

• A good writeup at University of Texas Health Science Center
• http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/MYSA103007_cancertherapy_KENS_1c1267fbc...
• The website of it's maker
• ASCO 2008 Poster indicating 8/21 stable disease (5 too early to evaluate)

 This discussion board link has a cut-and-paste explanation of how it works. You can probably get the original from the maker's website.