key: cord-0985455-dmacrdug
authors: Donia, Ahmed; Shahid, Ramla; Nawaz, Muhammad; Yaqub, Tahir; Bokhari, Habib
title: Can we develop oncolytic SARS-CoV-2 to specifically target cancer cells?
date: 2021-12-02
journal: Ther Adv Med Oncol
DOI: 10.1177/17588359211061988
sha: 3977017702fe22a6ef60c2e17cd2009267672d9f
doc_id: 985455
cord_uid: dmacrdug

nan

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We read with great interest the article by Ottaiano et al. titled "Unexpected tumor reduction in metastatic colorectal cancer patients during SARS-Cov-2 infection" 1 reporting a very interesting three colorectal cancer (mCRC) cases experiencing infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2), and all three patients surprisingly showed improvement in mCRC disease burden.

Induction of apoptosis is considered to be one of the promising strategies for the development of new anti-cancer therapies. 2 Infection induced by SARS-CoV-2 is associated with increased rate of apoptosis. 3 Therefore, we propose that infection with low-pathogenic SARS-CoV-2 may lead to efficient and rapid oncolysis, especially with the information that cancer remission was seen in many patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. [4] [5] [6] Research is urgently needed to uncover the possibility of using oncolytic SARS-CoV-2 to specifically target cancer cells.

Pasin and colleagues reported a very interesting male patient case of a temporary remission of refractory natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphoma during COVID-19 infection, and he surprisingly relapsed after COVID-19 resolution. 5 This remission of NK lymphoma was observed during COVID-19 infection, with surprising clinical and laboratory amelioration, suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 may have some oncolytic activity. 5 In a recent study, Challenor and Tucker reported an interesting case of remission of Hodgkin's lymphoma after infection with SARS-CoV-2. 4 They hypothesized that infection with SARS-CoV-2 triggered an anti-tumor immune response. The proposed mechanisms of action could be crossreactivity of pathogen-specific T-cells with tumor antigens and activation of NK cell through inflammatory cytokines secreted in response to infection. 4 Sollini and colleagues recently reported that a 61-year-old patient had complete remission of follicular lymphoma after SARS-CoV-2 infection, with exclusion of malignancy guided by computed tomography (CT) biopsy performed twice. 6 Keeping in mind the current cases of cancer remission seen in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 as well as SARS-CoV-2 apoptotic feature, there is an urgent need to investigate developing of oncolytic SARS-CoV-2 to specifically target cancer cells.

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ahmed Donia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2130-3700

Unexpected tumor reduction in metastatic colorectal cancer patients during SARS-Cov-2 infection

Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology 13 2 journals

Apoptosis induced by SARS-CoV-2: can we target it?

SARS-CoV-2-induced remission of Hodgkin lymphoma

Oncolytic effect of SARS-CoV2 in a patient with NK lymphoma

Complete remission of follicular lymphoma after SARS-CoV-2 infection: from the 'flare phenomenon' to the 'abscopal effect'