Gene Therapy and Viral Therapy for Malignant Glioma

Abstract

Malignant gliomas have a poor prognosis despite advances in surgical procedures, radiotherapy, and the emergence of new treatments have improved outcomes. One of these new treatments is gene therapy, which has been developed as a new therapeutic strategy. Recently, new methods and approaches have been developed. Gene therapy involves the introduction of genes or cells into a glioma, or the human body, to treat gliomas; various genes such as cancer-suppressing genes, immunomodulation cytokine-related genes, and suicide genes are used in this treatment. Viral therapy is a treatment that oncolytic viral replicates in tumor cells to destroy tumors. Various viral genes can also be used as therapeutic genes. Currently, the most well-studied and accumulated viruses are adenoviruses and HSV-1. Various clinical trials have been conducted using gene therapy and viral therapy, some of which are scheduled to be approved in the near future. Gene therapy and viral therapy have dramatically improved and have developed progressively since their first clinical use.