About this Book

Using viruses to treat cancer is an established concept, and many viruses have shown promising anti-tumor efficacies. Oncolytic viruses are safe and well-characterized pathogens with a stable genome. The outstanding clinical results for oncolytic virotherapy deserve serious attention and consideration to make it a treatment option alongside classical cancer therapeutics. Virotherapy uses replication-competent oncolytic viruses to replicate and destroy cancer cells selectively. The transformed nature of cancer cells offers a permissive environment for some viruses’ replication and to complement viral mutations. The in situ amplification and spread within the tumor mass is the key benefit of such replication-competent viruses. Oncolytic virotherapy is divided into two main groups, according to tumor specificity: naturally oncolytic viruses to replicate in human cancer cells; and gene-modified viruses engineered to accomplish selective oncolysis.