Rayan A. Ahmed
The battle against cancer is not easy and that because cancer is not only one disease. Actually, it is a group of disorders comprising abnormal cell growth with the possibility to spread to different parts of the body. It is one of the main causes of death globally, and is liable for an expected 9.6 million deaths in 2018. Progress in drug development for cancer is the continuous efforts. However, undesirable toxicities and side effects are the key hurdles which prevent its success rate. Currently, various procedures have been carried out in the treatment of cancer including surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapy, as well as immunotherapy. Also, oncolytic virotherapy (OV) is another novel approach of cancer management which uses replicating viruses to kill abnormal cells, but systemic transportation and immunoreactions against the viruses stay challengeable.
Besides, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which are a type of adult stem cells, have been recently introduced as an effective tool for cell-based therapy of multiple diseases, including cancer. With this aspect, MSCs are designed as cell vehicles equipped with anticancer drugs or viruses, not just on the grounds that they are easily acquired and multiplied to big numbers in-vitro, yet additionally due to their capacity to relocate and engraft into tumors. It also provides the protection to viruses from immune reactions inside the body. Furthermore, MSCs loaded with oncolytic viruses are used to treat advanced metastatic types of cancer. In facts, MSCs-intervened systemic transport of oncolytic viruses accomplished not just a synergistic anticancer activity with enhanced safety profiles, yet in addition the resistance of tumor cells is overwhelmed.
In brief, tremendous efforts of developing mesenchymal stem cells to deliver oncolytic viruses were done to set up a stage transforming advancement in oncolytic virus treatment to the hospitals.
