In the battle against cancer, new study points out how sex and certain virus can help the fight against the deadly disease. As per a research conducted by The Ottawa Hospital, flu vaccine when combined with certain medications used to treat Erectile Dysfunction can help one wipe off the cancer cells that may be left after surgery.
As per the study, this method may prove to be very effective as in the mice model, it helped reduce the spread of cancer by over 90 per cent. This is the world’s first clinical trial regarding the subject matter.
"Surgery is very effective in removing solid tumours. However, we're now realizing that, tragically, surgery can also suppress the immune system in a way that makes it easier for any remaining cancer cells to persist and spread to other organs. Our research suggests that combining erectile dysfunction drugs with the flu vaccine may be able to block this phenomenon and help prevent cancer from coming back after surgery," said senior author Rebecca Auer.
The ED drugs that were a part of the study included sildenafil (Viagra) and tadalafil (Cialis) along with an inactivated influenza vaccine (Agriflu).
The human trial is soon to begin with 24 patients at The Ottawa Hospital undergoing abdominal cancer surgery. This trial will help evaluate safety of the treatment and will look for changes in the immune system.
"We're really excited about this research because it suggests that two safe and relatively inexpensive therapies may be able to solve a big problem in cancer," Auer said. "If confirmed in clinical trials, this could become the first therapy to address the immune problems caused by cancer surgery."
The first author of the study Lee-Hwa Tai said, "Cancer immunotherapy is a huge area of research right now, but we're still learning how best to use it in the time around surgery. This research is an important step forward that opens up many possibilities."
Source : https://goo.gl/Mi5Sso
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