The observation that certain viruses have an anti-neoplastic effect in animals (see Southam and Moore, Cancer, 1952, v. 5, 1025 and others), has led to the deliberate induction of certain virus infections in patients with advanced cancer as an experimental therapeutic effect. Southam and Moore describe the clinical course and virus studies of patients inoculated with West Nile virus. The life expectancies of the patients ranged from hours to 2-3 years but the majority were in a terminal condition non-responsive to any known treatment. The authors inoculated 95 patients with the Egypt 101 strain (which had been passed not more than 4 times in mice or eggs); of these 78 were available for evaluation: of the latter 69 (89 per cent.) showed no signs of infection other than fever, 9 (11 per cent.) showed signs of encephalitis; 87 per cent, of those studied had viraemia on day 3 or later; 73 per cent, had viraemia 6 days or more after inoculation and 10 per cent, had viraemia longer than 12 days. This prolonged viraemia in such a high percentage of patients is in contrast with previous results with high-mouse-passage West Nile virus [see Southam and Moore, this Bulletin, 1952, v. 27, 530]. Virus was frequently demonstrated in tumour tissue and in some patients it was selectively localized in tumours.

A direct correlation was found between the persistence of viraemia and the severity of the clinical disease, but the titre of the virus inoculum had no apparent influence upon either persistence of viraemia or the severity of the clinical reaction. There was no difference in the infection if egg-passage virus, as compared with mouse-passage virus, was used for inoculation. Some passages were made in patients but this did not produce any change in the virulence (as judged by viraemia) or the severity of the clinical reaction.