Oncolytic virotherapy uses replication-competent virus as a means of treating cancer. Whereas this field has shown great promise as a viable treatment method, the limited spread of these viruses throughout the tumor microenvironment remains a major challenge. To overcome this issue, researchers have begun looking at syncytia formation as a novel method of increasing viral spread. Several naturally occurring fusogenic viruses have been shown to possess strong oncolytic potential and have since been studied to gain insight into how this process benefits oncolytic virotherapy. Whereas these naturally fusogenic viruses have been beneficial, there are still challenges associated with their regular use. Because of this, engineered/recombinant fusogenic viruses have also been created that enhance nonfusogenic oncolytic viruses with the beneficial property of syncytia formation. The purpose of this review is to examine the existing body of literature on syncytia formation in oncolytics and offer direction for potential future studies.

溶瘤病毒疗法使用具有复制能力的病毒作为治疗癌症的手段。尽管该领域作为一种可行的治疗方法显示出了巨大的前景，但这些病毒在整个肿瘤微环境中的有限传播仍然是一个重大挑战。为了克服这个问题，研究人员开始将合胞体形成视为增加病毒传播的新方法。几种天然存在的融合病毒已被证明具有强大的溶瘤潜力，并且已被研究以深入了解该过程如何有益于溶瘤病毒疗法。尽管这些自然融合病毒是有益的，但它们的常规使用仍然存在挑战。因此，还创建了工程/重组融合病毒，通过合胞体形成的有益特性增强非融合溶瘤病毒。本综述的目的是检查关于溶瘤药物中合胞体形成的现有文献，并为未来潜在的研究提供方向。