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Trials of Onyx-015 for Cancer Treatment

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The Onyx-015 is an oncolytic adenovirus that is similar to the H101 virus. The Onyx-015 is also used to treat head and neck cancers along with chemotherapy. This virus has been created in the US but has yet to be regulated by the government. During the trial period of the virus, there were 22 patients admitted into the trial that had head and neck cancers. In order to be admitted into the trial there were some conditions that had to be met. These conditions consists of, the life expectancy of the patient had to be 3 months, over the age of 18 years and have a Karnofsky performance greater than 60% [11]. The Karnofsky performance is a scale that states the health of a patient. In this case a performance greater than 60% indicates that they are able to care for themselves or may require occasional assistance [12]. Another important condition is that the tumor had to be in an area where there can be direct injections. There were three trial phases that had to be completed. The first phase was to inject the Onyx-015 at the tumor site with a low dosage to see how the body responds and to observe the side effects. The results stated that patients had flulike symptoms including fevers, nausea and other effects. The main conclusion from the first phase trial was that the Onyx-015 virus did not have a big affect on the injected tumor. Only 5 of the 22 patients had a response to the tumor with the low dosage of the virus [13]. The second phase consisted of an increase in the amount

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