Response: Re: Scientific Interest in Newcastle Disease Virus Is Reviving

Extract

Before writing my News article (1) about Newcastle disease virus (NDV) therapy, I read 70 scientific articles in the field. Because I chose to focus on phase II human trials in my report, I reported only Csatary's 1993 publication (2).

Csatary's other publications were anecdotal reports. A letter (3) reported seeing tumor regressions after treating three patients with live virus. A 1999 article (4) described the effects of treating four patients. Another letter (5) reported tumor shrinkage and neurologic improvement in a single glioblastoma patient treated with NDV.

I had noted Csatary's comment in the 1999 article (4) that“ over 300 patients have been treated at a private clinic in Budapest” and was anxious to find out the results obtained with those patients. I attempted to contact Csatary at the United Cancer Research Institute (UCRI). Although he never responded, Eva Csatary advised me that they had communicated their best-case series of cancer patients treated with NDV therapy to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). As I reported in my article, NCI scientists were unable to evaluate the effectiveness of the therapy from the information provided.