Oncolytic virus therapy for cancer treatment

Abstract

In the last few years, oncolytic virus therapy has been increasingly recognised as a new class of immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer. To date, a variety of oncolytic viruses, intact and genetically modified, have been developed for the treatment of cancer, and many clinical studies have been or are being conducted. In fact, three oncolytic viruses have already been approved and commercialised in some countries. The therapy has multiple effects such as, direct lysis of cancer cells without damaging healthy cells, the activation of the immune system, the induction of chemokines to turn a cold tumour into a hot tumour and elimination of distant and uninfected tumour cells. In addition, biotechnology is increasingly being used in oncolytic viruses to improve the targeting and obtain better efficacy. Although it has good results, the use of this therapy must take into account the characteristics of the patient, the virus and the cancer which means that each case must be assessed individually. Furthermore, clinical guidelines for viral administration remain unclear and many limitations and features of the therapy need to be investigated. This work provides an overview of the basic concepts of cancer, viruses and immunology to describe and discuss the challenges in the development of oncolytic viruses as cancer therapeutics, either as monotherapy or in combination with other drugs, and to describe the future perspective of the therapy. Key words: oncolytic virus, cancer treatment, immunotherapy, clinical studies, limitations.