ArticleTherapeutic advances in medical oncology2022
Serendipitous synergism - an exceptional response to treatment with pembrolizumab in the course of a natural immunovirotherapy: a case report and review of the literature.
Article in Therapeutic advances in medical oncology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cancer viroimmunotherapy platforms based on varicella-zoster virus and cytomegalovirus.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2026Review
- Oncolytic varicella-zoster virus engineered with ORF8 deletion and armed with drug-controllable interleukin-12.Journal for immunotherapy of cancer · 2024Article
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13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are the current guideline recommended treatment for many malignancies considered to be terminal. Despite considerable advances, their utility remains limited, and the field requires synergistic partners to further improve outcomes. Oncolytic viruses (OV) are emerging as contenders for the role of the synergistic agent of choice due to their multi-mechanistic effect on activating the tumor 'cold' immune microenvironment. Herpes simplex virus 1, a naturally selective OV, is the most advanced virotherapeutic compound in clinical applications for use in combination with ICI. We here present the case of a 72 year-old patient with a heavily pre-treated, advanced maxillary sinus squamous cell cancer with distant metastases who developed complete response (CR) with only three administrations of a programmed death 1 inhibitor after treatment interference by a severe herpes zoster infection, based on the related alpha-herpesvirus varicella zoster virus (VZV). This exceptional response has been followed and confirmed with imaging studies over more than 5 years. Although the patient had several favorable predictors for response to immunotherapy, we reason that the exceptional response may in part be secondary to the serendipitous VZV infection. Documented cases of cancer patients that achieved CR after few administrations of treatment with ICI are rare, with most reporting follow up of just over 1 year or less. In this case, it is conceivable that the interference of the infection with VZV, soon after the start of immunotherapy with ICI, led to a lasting antitumor immunity and sustained CR. This hypothesis is supported by the concept of 'oncolytic immunotherapy' which is reviewed in this manuscript. In addition, persistence of a
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