Hot, toxic and healing

• Autores: Uwe Hobohm
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2950, 2014, págs. 26-27
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • After he lost his first patient to cancer in 1891, William Coley was desperate to find an alternative treatment to offer next time, not just surgery and morphine. That desire must have led the US surgeon to the first published account of "fever therapy"--treating cancer with pathogenic bacteria. Though there were failures, he achieved many cures and the technique came to be known as "Coley's toxins". Despite this, with the rise of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the treatment fell out of favor. Recently, there has been renewed interest in using bacteria to treat cancer, but the approach faces a major hurdle. Here, Hobohm examines why it's time to resurrect the old technique.