60 Minutes - 3/29/2015: Bashar al-Assad, Killing Cancer

Episode Date: March 30, 2015

Charlie Rose interviews Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as Syria's four-year-old civil war drags on; and, 60 Minutes follows brain cancer patients in a Duke University clinical trial of a therapy that uses a re-engineered polio virus to kill cancer cells. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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When I don't have the public support, when I don't represent the Syrian interest and values. And how do you determine that? I have direct contact with the people. How could any... So you determine whether they support you? No, no, no. I don't determine. I sense. I feel. I'm in contact with them. I'm a human. Under traditional standard of care treatment, Stephanie should not be standing here next to us today. Absolutely not. For 10 months, we've been following patients through an experimental therapy at Duke University. You might feel a little tug. That is using the polio virus to attack glioblastoma, the deadliest brain cancer there is. This to me is the most promising therapy I've seen in my career.

Period. A turning point in cancer care? I hope so. I think it may well be. With that kind of promise, the scientists at Duke are using the polio virus on other cancers in their labs. What have you been able to kill so far? So we have done this for lung cancers, breast cancers, colorectal cancers, prostate cancers, pancreatic cancers, liver cancers, renal cancers. I'm Steve Croft.

I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Morley Safer. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Charlie Rose. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. Four years ago, the Obama administration declared that Syria's Bashar al-Assad must go. Today, President Assad is still there, but much of the country has gone. Assad's Syrian government has lost control over significant amounts of its territory

to either ISIS or Syrian rebel groups. Four million Syrian refugees have fled the country. More than 200,000 have died, most from Syrian military bombing of territory controlled by his opponents. With the rise of ISIS in Syria, toppling Assad is no longer the highest priority there for the United States. And last month, Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS News, the U.S. is open to negotiating with Syria, something we discovered Assad wants. We traveled to Damascus this past week and met with Assad for an interview

under the conditions that we use Syrian TV technicians and cameras. We began by asking him about American airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. How much of a benefit are you getting from American airstrikes in Syria reducing the power of ISIS? Sometimes you could have local benefit. But in general, if you want to talk in terms of ISIS, actually ISIS has expanded since the beginning of the strikes. Not like some American wants to sugarcoat the situation as to say that it's getting better.

ISIS has been defeated and so on. Actually, no. You have more recruits. Some estimate that they have 1,000 recruits every month in Syria and Iraq. They are expanding in Libya and many other Al-Qaeda affiliates, organizations

have announced their allegiance to ISIS. How much territory do they control in Syria? ISIS controls how much territory? 50%? It's not regular war.

You don't have criteria. It's not an army that made incursions. They try to infiltrate any area when there's no army and when you have inhabitants. The question is how much incubator they have. The question is how much hearts and minds they want so far. And how much of that? How do you measure that? You cannot measure it, but you can tell that the majority of the people who suffered from ISIS,

they are supporting the government. And of course the rest of the Syrian people are afraid from ISIS. And I don't think they win. I think they lost a lot of hearts and minds. They've lost a lot? They've lost. except the very ideological people who have Wahhabi state of mind and ideology. There's another number

that is alarming to me. It is that 90% of the civilian casualties, 90% come from the Syrian army. How did you get that result? There was a report that was issued in the last six months. Okay. As I said earlier, the war is not about, it's not traditional war.

It's not about capturing land and gaining land. It's about winning the hearts and minds of the Syrians. We cannot win the hearts and minds of the Syrians while we are killing Syrians. We cannot sustain four years in that position as a government and me as president while the rest of the world, most of the world, the great powers and regional power are against me and my people against me.

That's impossible. I mean, this logic has no leg to stand on. So this is not realistic and this is against our interest as government is to kill the people. What do we get? What's the benefit of killing the people? Well, I mean, the argument is that you, there are weapons of war that have been used that most people look down on with great, one is chlorine gas. They believe it has been used here. They said there is evidence of that,

and they would like to have the right to inspect to see where it's coming from. As you know, barrel bombs have been used, and they come from helicopters. And the only people who have helicopters is the Syrian army. And so those two acts of war, which society looks down on as... Let me fully answer this. ...bombering hacks. It's very important. This is part of the malicious propaganda against Syria.

First of all, the chlorine gas is not military gas. You can buy it anywhere. But it can be weaponized. No, because it's not very effective. It's not used as military gas. That's very self-evident. Traditional armament is more important than chlorine.

And if it was very effective, the terrorists would have used this on a larger scale. Because it's not effective, it's not used very well. Then why not let somebody come in and inspect it

and see whether it's been used or not? We would be happy for that. Of course. We always ask the delegation, impartial delegation, to come and investigate.

But, I mean, logically and realistically, it cannot be used as a military. This is part of the propaganda because, as you know, in the media, when it bleeds, it leads. And they always look for something that bleeds, which is the chlorine gas and the barrel bombs.

You do use barrel bombs. You're just saying... There's no such thing called barrel bombs. You have bombs. And any bombs is about killing. You have often spoken about the danger of a wider war in the Middle East. Yeah. Let me talk about the parties involved and characterize how you see them.

Let me begin with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is an anarchic autocracy, medieval system, that's based on the Wahhabi dark ideology. Actually, let's say it's a marriage between the Wahhabi and the political system for 200 years now. That's how we look at it. And what is their connection to ISIS? The same ideology, the same background. So ISIS and Saudi Arabia are one and the same? The same ideology, yes.

Same ideology. It's Wahhabi ideology. Their ideology is based on the books of the Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia. So you believe that all Wahhabis have the same ideology as ISIS? Exactly. Definitely. And that's not by ISIS, by Al-Qaeda, by Al-Nusra. It's not something we discover or we try to promote. It's very, I mean, their books,

they use the same books to indoctrinate the people. About Turkey? Turkey, let's say, is about Erdogan, his Muslim Brotherhood fanatics. Doesn't mean that he's a member, but he's a fanatic. President Erdogan is? He's a Muslim Brotherhood fanatic. And he's somebody who's suffering from political megalomania,

and you think that he's becoming the sultan of the new era, of the 21st century. You think he could stop the border if he wanted to? Yeah, of course, definitely. He doesn't only ignore the terrorists from coming to Syria. He supports them logistically and militarily, directly, on a daily basis. Tell us what the Russians want. They are a strong ally of you. Yeah.

What do they want? Definitely, they want to have balance in the world. It's not only about Syria. I'm a small country. It's not only about Syria. I'm a small country. It's not about having a huge interest in Syria. They could have it anywhere else. So it's about the future of the world. They want to be great power that have their own say in the future of this world.

And what do they want for Syria? Stability. They want stability and political solution. And what does they want for Syria? Stability. They want stability and political solution. And what does Iran want? The same. The same. Syria and Iran and Russia see eye to eye regarding this conflict. And what is your obligation to both of them?

What do you mean obligation? What do you owe them? Yeah, I know, but they didn't ask for anything. Nothing at all. That's what I said. They don't do that for Syria. They do it for the region and for the world because stability is very important for them.

You and your father have held power in Syria for how many years? Is it a calculation of years? Yes. Or public support? No, years. There's a big difference. How long have you had it? It doesn't matter how many years? Is it a calculation of years? Yes. Or public support? No, years. There's a big difference. How long have you had it? It doesn't matter how many years.

The question is... What does matter? No, what's matter for us, do the Syrians support these two presidents? Doesn't matter if they are father and son. We don't say George W. Bush is the son of George Bush. It's different. He's president, I'm president.

He has support from that generation. I have support from these generations now. That's the question. It doesn't matter how many. It's not the family rule, as you want to imply. It's not? No. Why do you think that people in the West question your legitimacy? This intervention in Syria matters. I don't care about it, to be frank. I never care about it, as long as I have the public support of the Syrian people. That's my legitimacy. Legitimacy comes

from the inside. But why? I will tell you why. Because the West used to have puppets, not independent leaders or officials in any other country. And that's the problem with Putin. They demonize Putin because he can say no and he wants to be independent. Because the West, especially the United States, don't accept partners. They only accept followers. Even Europe is not a partner of the United States. That's to be very frank with you. So this

is their problem with Syria. They need somebody to keep saying yes, yes, and a puppet, a marionette, and so on. What circumstances would cause you to give up power when I don't have the public support when I don't represent the Syrian interest and values and how do you determine that I have direct contact with the people how could any

you determine whether they support you no no I don't determine I I sense, I feel, I'm in contact with them. I'm a human. How can a human make direct relation with the population? I mean, the war was very important lab for this support. I mean, they could have, if they don't support you, they could have and go and support the other side. They didn't. Why? I mean, that's very clear.

That's very concrete. I came here after Secretary Kerry had made his remarks. My impression once I got here is that when you heard those remarks, you were optimistic. The State Department backed a little bit and said we still think

there needs to be a new government. But you were optimistic after you heard that. You believe there is a way for your government and the American government to cooperate and coordinate. That's not the main point regarding that statement. I think the main point, we could have a feeling, and we hope that we are right, that the American administration started to abandon this policy of isolation,

which is very harmful to them and to us. Because if you isolate a country, you isolate yourself as the United States from being influential and effective in the course of events, unless you are talking about the negative influence, like making embargo that could kill the people slowly, or launching war and supporting terrorists that could kill them in a faster way. So our impression, let's say, we are optimistic, more optimistic, I wouldn't exaggerate, that at least when they're thinking about dialogue,

it doesn't matter what kind of dialogue and what the content of the dialogue, and even doesn't matter of what their real intentions, but the word dialogue is something we haven't heard from the United States on the global level for a long time. But you just did from the Secretary of State. We need to negotiate. Exactly. That's dialogue.

That's what I said. I mean, that's why I said it's positive. That's what I said. We are more optimistic. I mean, when they abandon this policy of isolation, things should be better. I mean, when you start the dialogue, things will be better. Why don't you reach out to Secretary Kerry and say, let's talk? Are they ready? Let's talk. We are always open. We never close our doors. They should be ready for the talk. They should be ready for the negotiations. We didn't make the embargo on the United States. We didn't attack the American population.

We didn't support terrorists who did anything in the United States. Actually, the United States did. We always wanted to have good relations with the United States. We never thought in the other direction. It's a great power. Not a wise person thinks of having bad relations with the United States. We never thought in the other direction. It's a great power. Not a wise person thinks of having bad relations with the United States. But can you have good relationships with a country that thinks you shouldn't be in power? No, this is not going to be part of the dialogue as I mentioned earlier. This is not their business. We have Syrian citizens who can decide this, no one else. Whether they want to talk about it or not, it's not something we're going to discuss with anyone.

This cannot end militarily. Do you agree with that? Yeah, definitely. Every conflict, even if it's a war, should end with a political solution. We'll have more from President Assad tomorrow on CBS This Morning. You can see the entire interview on my PBS broadcast Monday night. 60 Minutes, coming up after this short break. Sometimes historic events suck, but what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through

storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more. The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck, available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. The long war on cancer has left us well short of victory. Radiation flashed on in the 19th century. Chemotherapy began to drip in the 20th. But for so many, 100 years of research adds up to just a few more months of life. Well, tonight, you're about to see a discovery for the 21st century that may be a big leap forward, awakening the power of the body's immune system. For 10 months, we've been inside an experimental therapy at Duke University. Some of the patients there use words that doctors don't

use, like miracle and cure. And that's remarkable because these patients were handed a death sentence, a relentless brain cancer called glioblastoma. To beat it, researchers are doing something that many thought was crazy. They're infecting the tumors with polio, the virus that has crippled and killed for centuries. In just a moment, polio will be dripped into the brain of 58-year-old Nancy Justice. Her glioblastoma tumor was discovered in 2012. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation bought her two and a half years, but the tumor came roaring back. Now, the virus in this syringe, which mankind has fought to eradicate from

the earth, is the last chance she has in the world. You might feel a little tug, depending on how... In October this past year, half a teaspoon of polio flowed into her tumor. Okay. Ready to go? Are you ready to go? I'm ready. Bring it on. Let's go.

We're starting. 921. If you feel anything, you let us know. I'm ready. Bring it on. We're starting. 9-21. If you feel anything, you let us know. I will, definitely. Perfect. Well, let me ask, do you feel anything? No. So far, so good.

Don't feel a thing. Her husband, Greg, constantly inflates a buoyant optimism to save him from the weight of the unknown. Glioblastoma was diagnosed in the 21st year of the Georgia couple's marriage, just as they could make out the finish line for Zach and Luke at college. Her tumor can double in size every two weeks, and when glioblastoma returns, time is short. Doctors gave her seven months, but good ones, maybe just three or four. The tumor was aggressive, so you wanted an aggressive treatment. Yes, yes. You're a medical explorer. Does it feel that way to you?

I'm taking it one day at a time. It sounds very lofty to say medical explorer, but, you know, throughout all of this, if this gives other people hope, I'm all for it. Greg, you mentioned that Nancy was there for every important event in the boys' lives, but there are a lot of important events to come. Exactly. What do you hope to see? So I am going to see those boys walk across the stage at their college graduation. I am going to see them get married and I am going to see grand boys walk across the stage at their college graduation. I am going to see them get married, and I am going to see grandkids, preferably in that order. And I know it's like such a mom bucket list, but I'll love every minute of it.

It was the day before that we saw Nancy preceded by her shield, the smile that she rarely lets slip. Nancy was wheeling into an intricate surgery to insert a path for the virus. That white mass is the tumor, back of her skull, near the top. Duke's chief of neurosurgery, Dr. John Sampson, used 3D MRIs to plot his course. He tacked between the lime green strands that connect to every vital function in her body, and he brought the catheter to the center of the lethal mass. It's just like a sniper's bullet. If it doesn't go to the right place, it's not going to hit the target. And it's not only important to get it to the right place, but also to make sure that it doesn't go to the

wrong place. It doesn't cause any harm to the patient. It doesn't travel throughout the brain? It won't travel too far throughout the brain because it's a relatively big molecule, and the brain's a tight space, so it's limited in how far it can travel. At least, that's what they expected as Nancy became the 17th patient in the experiment. The polio infusion was slow. That half a teaspoon took six and a half hours. But that's it. One dose, and she's done.

No more surgery, chemo, radiation, nothing. If this works. You're doing fantastic. All right. Show me your smile. On Nancy's way home that same day, oncologist Dr. Annette Desjardins showed her how it went. So we can exactly see where the polio virus went. So that's the MRI you and I looked at on Monday.

Then you see here, the brighter area there, can you see that? Yes. That's the polio virus. Wow. Exactly where we needed it. Oh, cool. Right where it should be.

In a few months, they'll take another MRI to see which is stronger, glioblastoma or polio. The number of calls are increasing. This is Duke's polio team. As usual in such studies, several of them have a financial stake, so they'll benefit too if it becomes commercial. Can you pick out the deputy director of the Brain Tumor Center? Well, when you're one of the world's leading cancer doctors,

turns out you can wear what you like. And after 34 years, folks at Duke are used to how Dr. Henry Friedman's brain views fashion. Really good to see that this is going well. It was Friedman who encouraged Nancy Justice to gamble on the polio experiment. I wonder, of all the trials and all of the theories and all of the treatments that you have hoped for all of these years, how does this stack up? This to me is the most promising therapy I've seen in my career, period. A turning point in cancer care? I hope so. I think it may well be. Why would he say that during an early

clinical trial with barely enough patients to fill an elevator? Because of the decades of work that have led to this moment. The virus is the creation of, the obsession of, Dr. Matthias Bromeyer, a molecular biologist who's been laboring over this therapy 25 years, the last 15 at Duke. When you went to your colleagues and said, I've got it, we'll use the polio virus to kill cancer, what did they say? Well, I got a range of responses from crazy to you're lying, to all kinds of things. Most people thought it just was too dangerous. I thought he was nuts. I mean, I really thought that what he's using is a weapon that produces paralysis.

Other researchers are experimenting with cancer treatments using viruses including HIV, smallpox, and measles. But polio was Dr. Gromeyer's choice because, as luck would have it, it seeks out and attaches to a receptor that is found on the surface of the cells that make up nearly every kind of solid tumor. It's almost as if polio had evolved for the purpose. Gromeyer re-engineered the polio virus by removing a key genetic sequence. The virus can't survive this way, so he repaired the damage with a harmless bit of cold virus. This new, modified virus can't cause paralysis or death because it can't reproduce in normal cells.

But in cancer cells, it does. And in the process of replicating, it releases toxins that poison the cell. Duke went to the FDA for approval of this new Frankenstein virus. They were afraid you might create a monster. They were afraid we might create something which could infect the general community. I mean, look at me. I'm a scientist. I'm a physician. And I said, this is nuts. I think that their reaction was appropriate. To satisfy the FDA, they did seven years of safety studies. Tests on 39 monkeys proved they didn't get polio. And in 2011, the FDA approved a trial in humans. Someone had to go first. It's a hell of a thing to be told that you have months to live when you're 20 years old. In 2011, Stephanie Lipscomb was a nursing student with headaches.

A doctor came in to say that she had this glioblastoma tumor, the size of a tennis ball. I looked at the nurse that was sitting there holding my hand, and I said, I don't understand. What did he just say? It's kind of hard for me to process. You had 98% of the tumor removed. Exactly. As much radiation as you can have in a lifetime, and chemotherapy.

Exactly. And then in 2012, what did the doctors tell you? Your cancer's back. With recurrent glioblastoma, there were no options except the one that had never been tried before. Did they tell you that it had never been tried in a human being before? They did. But at the same time, I had nothing to lose, honestly. I wonder what your mother said. She looked at Dr. Desjardins. She said, you want to do what with my daughter? You want to do what? And I'm like, let's do it. Come on, let's go. I have the sense that this scared you a lot more than you've let on.

Mm-hmm. It did. And I knew how scared my family was, and I didn't want them to see me scared. But of course you were. Mm-hmm. In point of fact, we didn't know what the polio was going to do. We thought the polio virus might help her. We had no idea what it would do in the long haul. It was a crapshoot.

It's roll the dice and hope that you're going to get an answer that is coming up sevens and not coming up snake eyes. But in the months that followed, it looked like a bad bet. So we treated her in May. Then in July, the tumor looked bigger, looked really inflamed. I got really concerned, got really worried. You thought this wasn't working? I thought it wasn't working. Dr. Desjardins wanted to go back to traditional treatment, maybe another surgery, but Stephanie decided, against her advice, to wait. By October, five months after her infusion, an MRI showed that the tumor hadn't been growing at all. It turned out it only looked worse because it was inflamed. Stephanie's immune system had awakened to the cancer and gone to war. Why didn't the immune system react to the cancer to begin with?

So cancers, all human cancers, they develop a shield or shroud of protective measures that make them invisible to the immune system. And this is precisely what we try to reverse with our virus. So by infecting the tumor, we are actually removing this protective shield and enabling the immune system to come in and attack so essentially what's happening here inside the tumor is you have a polio infection yes and that sets off an alarm yes for the immune system yes immune system says there's a polio infection we better go kill it exactly and it turns out it's the tumor yes Yes. It appears the polio starts the killing,

but it's the immune system that does most of the damage. Stephanie's tumor shrank for 21 months until it was gone. This is an MRI from this past August, three years after the infusion, something unimaginable has happened for a patient with recurrent glioblastoma. And there's no cancer in this picture at all. We don't see any cancer, active cancer cells in the tumor at all. She is cancer-free. The only thing that remains is this hole, which is an artifact of an early surgery. Under traditional standard of care treatment,

Stephanie should not be standing here next to us today. Absolutely not. Stephanie, when they showed this to you, what did you think? I wanted to cry with excitement this time. How surprised are you by that? I'm surprised because you never expect on a phase one study in particular, which is what she is on, to have these kind of results. You're not expecting to cure people in a phase one trial. You're not even necessarily expecting to help them.

You hope so, but that's not the design of a phase one study. It's designed to get the right dose. When you get anything on top of that, it's cake. Quite a cake. Quite a cake. Biggest cake we've seen in a long, long time. Tell me what you see there. Dr. Fritz Anderson showed us the results in another patient, himself. He's a retired

cardiologist, and at age 70, he became the second person in the polio trial. This is a fairly sizable temporal tumor, which means... That we see right here. On the left is his tumor before treatment. On the right, a hairline scar where it used to be. Like Stephanie, that was nearly three years ago. When they said that this thing is just a small scar and we think it's possibly cured, I knew it fell off my chair. I said, that's impossible. They said, well, we don't know, but so far it looks fantastic. Do you consider yourself cured, or do you call it remission? I feel it as a cure. I live my life that way. Fritz and Stephanie met for the first time here at 60 Minutes

when we interviewed them last fall. You should do a head bump. There you go. There you go. Was yours on your right side? No, on the left. Which one's yours? My right. Right to left. There we go. last fall. With the early success, the team raised the dose in the next few patients in hope of an even better result. But that's when the polio trial encountered its first tragedies. When we come back, we'll look at how the virus is working in Nancy Justice, who we met in the beginning, and at what they've discovered after trying polio against lung cancer, breast cancer, and many others. 60 Minutes, coming up after this short break.

For nearly a year, we've been following the clinical trial at Duke University where the polio virus is being used to kill a vicious brain cancer called glioblastoma. The goal of the experiment was to discover the right dose of the virus. The first two patients saw their tumors melt away, so with that remarkable result at small doses, the researchers increased the potency of the virus in the next patients. That's how they made a tragic but vital discovery about the power of immunotherapy in killing cancer. Maybe you just close one eye. It's been three years since Stephanie Lipscomb became the first patient to see her recurrent glioblastoma wiped out by polio. Problem with memory, no vision, no. She gets a checkup at Duke every four

months and she's become a celebrity to the new patients starting the polio trial. 60 year old Donna Clegg, a social worker from Idaho, will be patient number 14. We're going to do it. Yes. High five. Thank you. This was Donna Clegg before cancer, and this is how we found her last June, puffy from the steroids they'd used to limit the swelling in her brain.

Like others in the trial, she'd had surgery, chemo, and radiation, but the glioblastoma came back, and the polio virus was her last chance. I want to be able to live, so that's kind of how I feel that this is going to be my opportunity to have a full life. Donna's polio infusion was three times more potent than the one that worked for Stephanie. And that's the whole idea behind this phase one trial, to increase the dose in succeeding patients step by step in search of the best result. Dr. Henry Friedman is deputy director of Duke's Brain Tumor Center. We believe in the philosophy we've learned in chemotherapy that more is better. So if we were getting a good response at dose level one or dose level two,

then go to dose level three, four, five. In Donna Clegg, doctors saw the expected inflammation as her immune system attacked the tumor. But the higher dose caused an immune response that was much too powerful. The inflammation put so much pressure on her brain, she became partially paralyzed. Back home in Idaho, she decided it was all too much and dropped out of the polio trial. I thought this was the miracle. Her husband recorded this in a nursing home. When you're told you either take this chance or die, what would you do? If you had to do chance or die, what would you do? If you had to do it over again, what would you do?

I may not have done it. Donna Clegg died three weeks ago. Because she left the trial, doctors at Duke can only theorize that it was a combination of the advanced state of her disease and the ferocious immune response that ended her life. Donna Clegg suffered quite a lot, and I wonder how that weighs on your mind. of her disease and the ferocious immune response that ended her life. Donna Clegg suffered quite a lot, and I wonder how that weighs on your mind. Every patient who has an outcome that is not positive weighs on my mind. I think that when you're doing a phase one study, you know that these things can happen,

and I don't think that we helped her quality of life. We've learned something, and I don't know that their helped her quality of life. We've learned something. And I don't know that their family will take heart in the fact they're part of a legacy of passing the torch to more patients that follow. I hope that that means something to them. But she is a patient who really did not derive benefit and yet taught us something important. You discovered that putting in too much polio virus created too large an immune response. Absolutely. And that was the turning point in the daring polio trial.

What was learned from Donna Clegg's death may give life to Nancy Justice. Neuro-oncologist Dr. Anique Desjardins cut the potency of Nancy's infusion by 85%. It was a lower dose than they had ever intended to use in the study. Even so, Dr. Desjardins expected a big immune response. In the next four to six months, we should see the inflammation of the immune system waking up, starting to kill the tumor. You will expect to see her MRI look worse in the early days? Yes, absolutely. Before it gets better? Absolutely. It certainly did. After she returned to Georgia, Nancy's symptoms started to resemble Donna Clegg's. She had trouble with words. Her right side was weak.

Her husband, Greg, took her back to Duke for an emergency MRI. This was Nancy's tumor before the polio infusion. Three months later, the site had doubled in size. The swelling had pushed one hemisphere of her brain into the other. Avastin, 500 milligrams. Dr. Desjardins ordered a small dose of a cancer drug called Avastin, not to treat the tumor, but to reduce the swelling. Nancy's symptoms improved right away. And two weeks ago, Nancy had a new MRI. It was four and a half months since her polio infusion, and we joined her husband and sons

to see the new image for the first time. And you haven't had a chance to see it yet, so show us, doctor, what you have. So glioblastoma is a tumor that's left untreated. You expect the tumor to double in size every two, three weeks. So the fact that we don't see the tumor growing back, we don't see the swelling coming back, we don't see Nancy getting worse, all of that is very positive. It's a sign that the polio virus is doing its job. On the left is the inflammation that we saw earlier. On the right is the new MRI. Her tumor has a gaping hole. It's being wrecked from the inside

out. So where does this go from here? So now we keep following her, and hopefully it keeps shrinking, and it keeps collapsing. And that's what we have seen with Fritz and Stephanie, that it continued shrinking for years. Nancy, when you look at this, what do you think? Oh, it's amazing. Oh my gosh. I mean, thank you, Lord. And these doctors, you know, and to just see this, you know, that's life. I mean, it's just, it's hard to not just start crying. So far, there have been 22 patients in the polio trial. 11 died. Most of them had the higher dose, but even so, they lived months longer than expected.

The other 11 continue to improve. Four are past six months, which Duke calls remission. We clearly are producing a very, very significant benefit. We've got an increase in median survival of over six months, which is huge in glioblastoma. Six months doesn't sound like very much. It doesn't sound like much, but that's just the midpoint. So we've got patients that are out as far as 33-34 months. That is just unheard of in this disease. Dr. Darrell Bignor is the head of the study and of Duke's Brain Tumor Center. He's been fighting brain cancer 50 years and he told us he has never seen results like those in patients Fritz Anderson

and Stephanie Lipscomb. Based on what you have seen, is it fair to say that Stephanie and Fritz are in remission? Oh, absolutely. That's probably a very good term to use. They're in remission, and I think they would tell you that they consider themselves normal again. Cured? You know, I'm very reluctant to use the cure word, the C word as we call it, because we don't know how long it takes to say that a glioblastoma has been cured. But I am beginning to think about it. Close your eyes for me. What cell am I touching? My left. But what they've achieved in this rare form of cancer may be just the beginning.

Molecular biologist Matthias Gromeyer, the creator of the virus, is pressing ahead. You have been testing this therapy against a number of other cancers just in a laboratory dish. Yes. What have you been able to kill so far? So we have done this for lung cancers, breast cancers, colorectal cancers, prostate cancers, pancreatic cancers, liver cancers, renal cancers. We probably see this in just about any type of cancer you can imagine. The man who's overseeing the polio trial for the FDA is Dr. Peter Marks, a deputy director responsible for hundreds of other experimental treatments for cancer. You have to wonder if it's too good to be true. Some of the results in these early trials appear nearly miraculous. We hope they really are miraculous, but we do have to be cautious

because sometimes people just get lucky. And the first patients they treat with the therapy respond very well, but subsequently additional patients don't. Help me put immunotherapy in perspective here. How big an advance is this in terms of viruses to treat cancer? The field of immunotherapy is tremendously exciting. It's been a paradigm shift in how we go about treating cancer because there are real products out there that are immunotherapies that are actually helping people to live longer. So we all know about surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, but now this is a fourth weapon.

Yes. Already, 10 drugs that trigger the immune system have been approved, and they are significantly extending the lives of patients with cancers, including lung cancer and melanoma. According to the rules of the FDA, Dr. Marks could not speak to us specifically about the polio trial, but in about a year, the FDA is expected to make a decision about whether to grant Duke what's called breakthrough status, which would make the polio treatment available to many more patients much sooner. Glioblastoma kills 12,000 Americans a year. Fritz Anderson expected to be one of them. Before he became the second patient in the Duke trial, he wrote his own obituary. He'll have to update it. Three years later, he's cancer-free.

Stephanie Lipscomb. Stephanie Lipscomb wasn't supposed to see her 22nd birthday. How are you doing? Three years later, she's graduated from nursing school. Do you think being a cancer survivor is going to make you a better nurse? Oh, yeah. It already has. Just because I've been a scared patient, and so I know I loved it when nurses held my hand. So I like to be there and be there emotionally for them, too. And as Nancy Justice's tumor continues to shrink, it's now leaving room for her imagination to grow. Nancy, months ago when I met you for the first time,

they were dripping the polio virus into your tumor. And you told me about some of the things that you were determined to see in the lives of these boys. I wonder if you're at a place now where you can start making plans. Oh, definitely. I mean, that's been what's kept me going. I will see them graduate college. I will see them get married.

And I will have grandchildren. In that order. In the mail this week, viewers wrote about our story on iraq's christians lara logan reported how some 125 000 believers have been forced to flee their ancient communities under threat from isis the signs on christian homes were chilling we cannot tolerate attempts to destroy any religious group. This situation is heartbreaking, and it needs to be shouted from the rooftops. And there was this from an Orthodox Christian in North Carolina.

I weep at the loss, not only of the written and architectural treasures of the church, but also for the loss of freedom of worship, of homes, and at the misery of my brothers and sisters. I'm Scott Pelley. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.