The Viral Knock: Ameliorating Cancer Treatment with Oncolytic Newcastle Disease Virus

Abstract

The prospect of cancer treatment has drastically transformed over the last four decades. The side effects caused by the traditional methods of cancer treatment like surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy through the years highlight the prospect for a novel, complementary, and alternative cancer therapy. Oncolytic virotherapy is an evolving treatment modality that utilizes oncolytic viruses (OVs) to selectively attack cancer cells by direct lysis and can also elicit a strong anti-cancer immune response. Newcastle disease virus (NDV) provides a very high safety profile compared to other oncolytic viruses. Extensive research worldwide concentrates on experimenting with and better understanding the underlying mechanisms by which oncolytic NDV can be effectively applied to intercept cancer. This review encapsulates the potential of NDV to be explored as an oncolytic agent and discusses current preclinical and clinical research scenarios involving various NDV strains.

Keywords

• cancer treatment
• oncolytic viruses
• Newcastle disease virus