Hope for cancer sufferers

May 21, 2009, 1:55 am David Richardson Today Tonight

Cancer is still a leading cause of death and despite decades of research it appears scientists are still no closer to curing it but there is hope.

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Ric Carter remembers all too vividly the day he was diagnosed with cancer.

"Cold chills. your life basically stops at that point," he said.

"All your aspirations, everything you've built up and got to that point in life looks like somebody has just cut them off."

Ric has a rare tumour on his tonsils and his only treatment is chemotherapy and rounds of radiotherapy.

New treatment called Virotherapy is giving hope to patients like Ric.

Virologist Professor Darren Schafren and his team from Newcastle University are leading an Australian first.

"We're using viruses whether naturally occurring or genetically altered to target cancer cells, inducing cell death, while leaving healthy cells alone," he said.

They are using a form of the common cold to attack various forms of cancer and the results are astonishing.

Darren said he treats melanoma, head and neck cancers, prostate and breast cancer but not all cancers.

"It's not a cure, it will be very difficult to cure cancer," he said.

"What we're looking at in virotherapy is to try and better current treatments, maybe prolong life and maybe give a better quality of life."

Darren said the idea is to match the right virus with the right type of cancer.

"There is the herpes virus in trial at the moment," he said.

"Normally we can see something in a couple of weeks, we can see signs of tumour regression in immune deficient mouse models."

Brian Dulhunty is managing director of Viralytics, the company financing this research.

"Viruses have been the curse of mankind for as long as man has evolved," he said.

"If it's proven to have the ability to destroy cancer, immense improvement in the quality of life, it's a fantastic industry to be involved in."

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The research may also solve on of man's greatest mysteries.

Throughout history there have been stories of people riddled with cancer, seemingly cured overnight. People have called them miracles and say they have been touched by the hand of God.

But is seems more likely that germs, bacteria or viruses were at play.

"I think that is at the heart of the technology," Darren said.

"There's lots of anecdotal evidence out there that people have gone into spontaneous remission with a number of different cancer types that coincided with some kind of opportunistic infection."

It will still be five years or more before this research becomes a recognised treatment and phase one of human trials is beginning now.