Immunotherapy has transformed the treatment of cancer, yet many patients do not have response or lasting benefit. Strategies to overcome resistance remain of crucial importance. Oncolytic viruses offer a promising approach, with the unique ability to selectively replicate within (and to destroy) cancer cells, remodel the immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment, and stimulate antitumour immunity. Interest in the potential of oncolytic viruses has grown steadily over the past two decades, fuelled by advances in cancer immunology and viral engineering. However, clinical translation has not kept pace, and although a plethora of promising new constructs have entered clinical testing, several barriers continue to restrict widespread clinical implementation. This Therapeutics paper highlights key milestones in oncolytic virus clinical development, discusses the challenges that remain, and, through clinical reflection, considers how future research might be streamlined to achieve meaningful benefit for patients.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 50. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 March 2026.
All research outputs
#1,085,442
of 34,765,775 outputs
Outputs from The Lancet
#8,076
of 52,503 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#11,243
of 353,197 outputs
Outputs of similar age from The Lancet
#68
of 255 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,765,775 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 52,503 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 63.1. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 353,197 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 255 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 73% of its contemporaries.
