A breakthrough treatment, based on a modified version of the herpes simplex virus, appears to be able to kill cancerous tumors. In fact, one patient who received the experimental treatment managed to be cured.
The RP2 study is being carried out at The Royal Marsden Hospital and patient participants were injected with a formulation containing a weakened herpes simplex virus, modified to ‘kill’ cancerous tumours.
The impressive thing is that the 39-year-old Krzysztof Wojkowski from west London who received the treatment managed to go from the end-stage treatment he received for a rare form of salivary gland cancer (diagnosed in 2017) to today being disease-free, i.e. cured.
The young man before joining the RP2 study had undergone multiple surgeries but without any hope of a cure. “I was told that I had no other options and the only thing left for me was to receive end-stage treatment so that I could leave life more peacefully,” he recalls.
In 2020 he visited The Royal Marsden Hospital and after an assessment joined the study. “Every two to five weeks they did the injection treatment, which eliminated the cancer. I have already been disease free for two years. It’s a real miracle. There are no words to describe what I feel. I can work as a builder again and spend time with my family,” says Krzysztof.
The genetically modified herpes simplex virus – type 1 which affects the face and mainly the lips (cold sores) and type 2 which affects the genitals (genital herpes) – which is injected directly into the tumors, is designed to have double action: it multiplies inside cancer cells to “pop” them from the inside and also blocks the CTLA-4 protein, releasing it into the immune system and increasing its ability to kill cancer cells.
Great Expectations
Three of the nine patients who took part in the study had their tumors shrink, and seven of the 30 who received the combination treatment with RP2 and nivolumab (immunotherapy) also had a therapeutic benefit.
In this particular group, four out of nine with melanoma (skin cancer), two out of eight with eye melanoma and one out of three with head and neck cancer either saw their tumors shrink or their disease progression stopped.
Of the seven patients who received the combination therapy with an observed benefit, six were disease-free at 14 months. It is very interesting to see if we will have the same results in larger groups of patients.
