The measles virus treatment did not "cure" anyone's cancer (yet)

There was a lot of hype in the media over a recent experiment at the Mayo Clinic in which doctors administered a massive dose of Measles Virus (MV) to two women with multiple myeloma which is a cancer of plasma cells, the immune cells that make antibodies. The MV was engineered to be especially harmful against the malignant myeloma cells (i.e. a the virus was designed to be "oncolytic" or cancer-killing).

Both women experienced a dramatic reduction in myeloma progression. One woman has relapsed, but the other has been in remission for 9 months. Given that the myeloma was advanced in both patients, this result is impressive.

The popular press has jumped on this story with headlines like "Mayo Clinic Researchers May Have Discovered a Cure for Cancer Hidden in an Unlikely Vaccine" or "Measles Vaccine Cures Woman Of Cancer." Bad journalism. For one, multiple myeloma represents only one type of cancer that afflicts about 1% of all cancer patients.

More importantly, the Measles Virus treatment (which is not a vaccination) has not cured anyone's cancer yet. So far there has been only 2 subjects; this treatment needs to be repeated on tens or hundreds of patients to assess its effectiveness more broadly. In addition, only one of the two is in remission (for 9 months); the five-year survival rate for multiple myeloma is around 35%. You talk about "cures" when the patients have been in remission for a five-year or ten-year span. Finally the authors of this study mention some caveats of this treatment such as that the patient can't have high levels of measles antibodies which could interfere with the MV oncolytic virus.

Nevertheless it is important to acknowledge that this preliminary result shows promise. Oncolytic viruses that target cancers are one exciting new tool in the arsenal against cancer; immunotherapies that use the body's immune system to kill tumor cells is another. We must continue our forward progress in the war on cancer from avoiding harmful behaviors to engaging in diligent screening to developing new and more potent therapies.

Figure 1. The Measles Virus a new tool in the fight against Multiple Myeloma.