Virus World

The Zika virus could shrink tumors in a childhood cancer that makes up one in seven cancer deaths, a study from researchers at Nemours Children's Health in Florida suggests. Scientists are hoping to turn a deadly African virus into a therapy for a deadly childhood cancer. The Zika virus is a mosquito-borne infection that reduces levels of a protein which forms in excess levels in patients with certain cancers. A team of researchers in Florida has shown that, in mice at least, it can can wipe out  tumors known as neuroblastomas, which make up one in seven childhood cancer deaths and form in the nerve cells as children develop.

Seventy-one of 110 Brazilian infants at the highest risk for experiencing problems due to exposure to the Zika virus in the womb experienced a wide spectrum of brain abnormalities, including calcifications and malformations in cortical development.  The infants were born at the height of Brazil's Zika epidemic, a few months after the nation declared a national public health emergency. Already, many of the infants had been classified as having the severe form of congenital Zika syndrome, and many had microcephaly, fetal brain disruption sequence, arthrogryposis and abnormal neurologic exams at birth. These 110 infants "represented a group of ZIKV-exposed infants who would be expected to have a high burden of neuroimaging abnormalities, which is a difference from other reported cohorts," Sarah B. Mulkey, M.D., Ph.D., writes in an invited commentary published in JAMA Network Open that accompanies the Rio de Janeiro study.

Indeed, a retrospective cohort of 82 women exposed to Zika during their pregnancies led by a research team at Children's National found only three pregnancies were complicated by severe fetal brain abnormalities. Compared with the 65% abnormal computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in the new Brazilian study, about 1 in 10 (10%) of babies born to women living in the continental U.S. with confirmed Zika infections during pregnancy had Zika-associated birth defects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Centered on the findings of Pool, et al, and others, early neuroimaging remains one of the most valuable investigations of the Zika-exposed infant," Dr. Mulkey writes, including infants who are not diagnosed with congenital Zika syndrome. She recommends:

• Cranial ultrasound as the first-line imaging option for infants, if available, combined with neurologic and ophthalmologic exams, and brainstem auditory evoked potentials
• Zika-exposed infants with normal cranial ultrasounds do not need additional imaging unless they experience a developmental disturbance
• Zika-exposed infants with abnormal cranial ultrasounds should undergo further neuroimaging with low-dose cranial CT or brain MRI.