Win32 Virus Removal

UNDATED (WJRT) -- (02/03/10) -- A sexually-transmitted disease may be the miracle some cancer patients have been hoping for.

HealthFirst reporter Leslie Toldo shows us how doctors are using the herpes virus to kill melanoma.

The melanoma rate is on the rise, despite all of the attention this form of skin cancer gets. And this is the first new treatment for it in a decade.

"It's just like you're right there, but they don't even know it," said melanoma patient Ira Dickstein.

Dickstein is searching for something. He's searching for a rare find.

"I've never seen a wandering paddler."

But now it's not a bird he's looking for. Dickstein has spent the last seven years trying to find a cure for his cancer.  "I found a significant black-and-blue area on the inside of my toe. It was hidden. It was big enough when I could see it. When I looked at the bottom of my foot, that's when I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know it was melanoma."

From one toe, the melanoma spread above his knee. "It's under the skin now."

Dickstein is taking part in his third clinical trial, but it's the first time he's seen his lesions disappear. "My melanoma actually retracted a bit."

The lesions started to disappear when doctors injected them with an sexually-transmitted disease.

Dr. Gregory Daniels is a medical oncologist at the University of California, San Diego. "It can be engineered to specifically target cancer cells."

Daniels injected a form of the herpes virus directly into Dickstein's melanoma lesions.

When the body recognizes a virus is in the body, it increases a patient's immune response. "Our body automatically recognizes that as a dangerous situation and attracts a response to it."

It's working for Dickstein. "The lesions that were directly injected shrunk, and one disappeared completely. The others were going backwards."

That's a good sign that his search for a cure is ending, and he can get back to looking for nature's hidden gems.

Melanoma is more common in men than women. It affects a wide age range, occurring in younger, as well as older, people.

In fact, it is one of the more common cancers diagnosed in teenagers.

HERPES KILLS CANCER

MELANOMA: Melanoma is a type of cancer that begins in the melanocytes, cells that produce pigment melanin. Melanoma can also begin in other pigmented tissues such as the eyes or intestines. In 2009, an estimated 68,720 new cases of melanoma were diagnosed and about 8,600 deaths were accounted for, according to the National Cancer Institute.

TREATMENTS: The standard surgical procedure used to remove melanoma tumors is excision, or surgical removal. The procedure can be a complete cure for most patients with thin melanomas. Another procedure used to treat melanoma, specifically on the head and neck, is Moh's surgery. Moh's can be used when the cancer has not yet spread to other areas of the body. During Moh's surgery, the surgeon removes the cancer layer by layer, guided by a microscope, until the whole tumor is gone. Other options for treatment are radiation therapy, chemotherapy and experimental treatments such as immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is a popular experimental treatment that encourages the body's own immune system to seek out and kill melanoma cells (Source: Mayo Clinic).

HERPES IN CANCER TREATMENT: Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), are testing a type of immunotherapy for melanoma using engineered herpes viruses. Using a needle similar to that used for the flu vaccine, researchers inject the herpes virus into a melanoma lesion. The idea is the presence of the new virus alerts the body's immune system to attack the cancerous area. Gregory Daniels, M.D., Ph.D., a researcher and medical oncologist at UCSD, says the virus is engineered to be safe for non-cancerous cells, and the idea of using viruses to fight cancer has been around for hundreds of years.

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