Oncolytic reovirus is currently under active investigation in a range of tumour types. Early phase studies have shown that this agent has modest monotherapy efficacy and its future development is likely to focus on combination regimens with cytotoxic chemotherapy. Indeed, phase I/II clinical trials have confirmed that reovirus can be safely combined with cytotoxic drugs, including a platin-taxane doublet regimen, which is currently being tested in a phase III clinical trial in patients with relapsed/metastatic head and neck cancer. Therefore, we have tested this triple (reovirus, cisplatin, paclitaxel) combination therapy in a panel of four head and neck cancer cell lines. Using the combination index (CI) method, the triple therapy demonstrated synergistic cytotoxicity in vitro in both malignant and non-malignant cell lines. In head and neck cancer cell lines, this was associated with enhanced caspase 3 and 7 cleavage, but no increase in viral replication. In vitro analyses confirmed colocalisation of markers of reovirus infection and caspase 3. Triple therapy was significantly more effective than reovirus or cisplatin-paclitaxel in athymic nude mice. These data suggest that the combination of reovirus plus platin-taxane doublet chemotherapy has significant activity in head and neck cancer and underpin the current phase III study in this indication.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. 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 August 2012.
All research outputs
#14,730,916
of 22,673,450 outputs
Outputs from Gene Therapy
#2,761
of 2,976 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#92,284
of 149,519 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Gene Therapy
#14
of 16 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,673,450 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 32nd percentile – i.e., 32% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,976 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.5. This one is in the 6th percentile – i.e., 6% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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 149,519 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 16 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 12th percentile – i.e., 12% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
