COVID-19 virus has surprising beneficial effects on cancer cells

With all the bad things that life has given us COVID-19It’s time for him to give us something good. We know a lot about its harmful effects, but could it have any beneficial effects? Maybe yes. And, according to a group of scientists from Northwestern Universitycould be the key to developing new cancer treatmentas severe infection with the SARS-CoV 2 virus has been shown to reduce the size of tumors. in mice.

Does this mean that people with cancer should look for an infection? Of course not. For starters, this procedure has only been tested on mice, so it remains to be seen whether it can be extrapolated to humans. It is quite possible that this is true; but even so, this does not mean that the infection is beneficial. Cancer treatment will be based on simulated infectionand not in the infection as such.

We must remember that cancer patients are particularly vulnerable to the effects of Covid-19. A serious infection may cause the tumor to shrink, but it can also be fatal. We must empower scientists to find a way to turn this discovery into a cancer treatment. For now, let’s see what this discovery is.

Cells that don’t bow to cancer

The immune system includes all the cells responsible for protecting the body from possible attacks. These are usually external attacks such as a viral or bacterial infection. However, they can also combat internal dangers, such as cells that begin to divide uncontrollably until transform into tumors.

The problem is that the tumors themselves, once they form, can hijack some of these immune system cells and use them. for your own benefit. This happens, for example, with a type of white blood cell called monocytes. tumor cells they kidnap them so not only do they not fight them, but they also protect against other immune cells. To use a typical military comparison often used when talking about the immune system, the enemy pits the soldier against his own army.

When a virus infects our cells, monocytes are also formed that come to fight it. These are monocytes, similar to those that attack cancer. But with the COVID-19 virus, something special is happening. It has been observed that monocytes produced in response to severe infection they cannot be taken over by tumors. They continue to perform their function both against the attack of the COVID-19 virus and against tumor cells.

New cancer treatment thanks to COVID-19?

To test whether these special monocytes could help treat cancer, the authors of a recently published study conducted an experiment on mice. They used rodents with different types of advanced phase IV tumors. There were mice with melanoma and others with lung, breast or colon cancer.

They all received medicine that mimics the immune response to severe infection with the COVID-19 virus. This is important because the virus was not introduced. It simply stimulated a response similar to that which occurs during infection.

This answer, of course, also included those monocytes that do not bow to tumors. As you might expect, they didn’t. tumor cells they couldn’t kidnap them. But that was not all. These monocytes were capable migrate towards the tumorsomething that few immune cells are capable of. Once there, they marked the cells for destruction and recruited natural killer cells, other immune cells that, as their name suggests, are responsible for murder to threats.

All of the mice’s tumors were reduced by COVID-19 monocytes. The only thing left to know is whether this mechanism could become a treatment for cancer in humans.

Clinical trials still missing

To find out if any of this is viable as a cancer treatment, it needs to be done. clinical trials on humans. They will analyze both the safety of the procedure and its effectiveness.

If results are shown to be as good as those in mice, this could be an excellent alternative to traditional cancer immunotherapy. These treatments rely on other components of the immune system: T cells. These procedures are usually effective in only 20–40% of patients. Therefore, the authors of the new study believe that COVID-19 monocytes may be a good alternative to this method. 60-80% left.

We’ll have to look at how to mimic a viral infection. It has been proven that modern coronavirus vaccines will not be enough, because not all viral RNA and the included sequences do not stimulate monocyte formation. But there are probably other alternatives. The road will be long and we don’t know whether we will be able to finish it; but at least the first steps were very useful.