There have been several advances in treatment of cancer that are worth mentioning. We are beginning molecular treatments with minimal side effects that may quickly become mainstream.
If you watch the show "Grey's Anatomy" you might have seen the episode where a doctor injected a modified HIV virus and cured a child of a severe immune deficiency. Many of these programs adapt true events.
In two patients with a resistant and un-treatable terminal cancer (multiple myeloma) researchers injected a large dose of a modified measles vaccine virus (which is a live virus). Dramatically, one patient had complete remission while the other had a partial, with only one injection of the virus and minimal side effects.
Boston Globe Article
In another more complex type of treatment, researchers discovered that in most cancers there are killer cells, or lymphocytes, that can be found in the cancer. They surmised that there were not enough of these to kill the cancer. So they extracted the killer cells from the tumor, and went about cloning them. when they reintroduced this new and reinforced "army" they found that the patient's tumor began to melt away!
This is a promising preliminary report.
New York Times Article
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