Author: Alex Strauss

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    Traditional Effusion Treatment Produces Fewer Complications for Mesothelioma Patients

    ByAlex Strauss

    The benefits of a procedure to remove part of the lung lining under video guidance may not be worth the risks and cost for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. That is the conclusion of researchers in the UK who studied the procedure over a nine-year period. The treatment, called Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Partial Pleurectomy is sometimes recommended as a way to control pleural effusions (fluid buildup) that can occur between the layers of the lung lining in pleural mesothelioma. But cancer researchers writing in the British medical journal The Lancet have concluded that a less invasive procedure called talc pleurodesis produces fewer complications and shorter hospital stays. The researchers conducted a randomized, controlled trial of 175 mesothelioma patients with pleural effusions…

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    Red Wine Compound and Leukemia Drug Target Mesothelioma Cells

    ByAlex Strauss

    The Korean researchers who were the first to study the mesothelioma-fighting effects of a chemical in red wine say combining it with a drug normally used to treat leukemia may enhance the effect. Resveratrol is a phenol derived from the skin of red grapes and found in red wine and grape juice. In 2013, researchers at Soonchunhyang University in Cheonan, Korea found that it may help fight mesothelioma by making cancer cells more sensitive to the tumor-fighting effects of chemotherapy. In their latest study, the team combined resveratrol with clofarabine, an antimetabolite marketed under the brand name Clolar and used to treat relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children. The researchers found that, when they exposed mesothelioma cells and healthy cells…

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    Mesothelioma survivor Paul Kraus, alive and well 19 years after writing “Surviving Mesothelioma and Other Cancers

    ByAlex Strauss

    Paul Kraus is considered the longest documented mesothelioma survivor in the world. He was diagnosed in 1997 with mesothelioma so widespread that he was given little hope of survival. Not willing to give up, he worked with a team of doctors to create his own tailored treatment protocol. This protocol included dramatic life style change, experimental therapies, dietary changes, mind-body medicine, and other modalities. Paul was fortunate. The protocol he and his doctors created helped him keep the mesothelioma in check. His book “Surviving Mesothelioma and Other Cancers: A Patient’s Guide” details his cancer voyage, the decisions he made, and his philosophies about health and healing. This book is now the best-selling mesothelioma book in the world and has inspired…

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    Combination Treatment Fights Mesothelioma “Synergistically”

    ByAlex Strauss

    Cancer researchers in Italy are working on a way to use the body’s own cancer-fighting tools to help boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy for mesothelioma. They are concentrating their efforts on a protein called TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand, also known as TRAIL. TRAIL is a cytokine that is produced by most normal tissue cells but causes apoptosis (programmed cell death) in tumor cells. TRAIL is one of the ways the body helps keeps cancers like mesothelioma from gaining a foothold. Recently, doctors at the University of Padua ran a test combining a form of TRAIL made from human cells with standard chemotherapy drugs to help fight malignant pleural mesothelioma. The lab-produced TRAIL, called dulanermin, was administered along with pemetrexed and carboplatin…

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    Women Much More Likely to Survive Mesothelioma than Men

    ByAlex Strauss

    A new study of more than 14,000 American mesothelioma patients finds that women are three times more likely to survive mesothelioma than men are. Researchers from the North Shore/Long Island Jewish Health System-Hofstra School of Medicine and Mount Sinai Health System in New York studied all pathologically confirmed mesothelioma cases in the national Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database between 1973 and 2009. Patients were analyzed by age, year of diagnosis, race, stage, treatments, gender and other factors. The team then used the data to assess the association between the various prognostic factors and survival. Of the 14,228 malignant pleural mesothelioma cases analyzed, 22% occurred in women. These women tended to be diagnosed at around the same cancer stage…

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    Mesothelioma Drug Side Effect Relieved by Surgery

    ByAlex Strauss

    A team of plastic surgeons in New York have had good luck dealing with one of the bothersome side effects of the mesothelioma drug, Alimta. Alimta (pemetrexed) is considered the gold standard chemotherapy drug for malignant pleural mesothelioma. It is often combined with the platinum-based drug cisplatin as a primary mesothelioma treatment or to help shrink mesothelioma tumors before or after surgery. It is also used to treat non-small cell lung cancer. But, like other powerful chemotherapy drugs, Alimta causes certain side effects, one of which can be swelling of the eyelids. While not life-threatening, eyelid swelling or “edema” can impact quality of life for mesothelioma patients and others on Alimta. But a new article in Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive…

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    Platinum Drug Beats Antibiotic for Peritoneal Mesothelioma Treatment

    ByAlex Strauss

    A team of surgeons in Nebraska have determined what they say is the best chemotherapy drug to pair with surgery in patients with peritoneal mesothelioma. Peritoneal mesothelioma is a rare form of the asbestos cancer that affects the lining of the abdomen. A treatment approach that involves removing as much of the cancer as possible with cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and then rinsing the abdomen with heated chemotherapy drugs (HIPEC) seems to produce better outcomes than systemic chemotherapy. But there is debate over the best drug to use in CRS/HIPEC treatment. Surgeons at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha conducted a retrospective study of peritoneal mesothelioma patients that spanned from 2003 to 2010. A total of 44 patients were treated with…

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    New CT Method May Enable Safer, Earlier Mesothelioma Detection

    ByAlex Strauss

    A new way of using a CT scanner may make it possible to detect the signs of mesothelioma earlier in asbestos workers without exposing them to dangerously high levels of radiation. As with most types of cancer, mesothelioma treatment outcomes are closely linked to early detection. Because people with mesothelioma often have no symptoms until decades after their asbestos exposure, some studies have suggested that CT scans of asbestos-exposed workers may offer a way to catch the disease earlier. But the radiation used in CT scanning carries its own cancer risks. Now, new research suggests that a technology developed by GE Healthcare may offer a safer way to monitor these workers for signs of mesothelioma. Radiologists and occupational medical experts…

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    Trial Drug May Boost Mesothelioma Chemotherapy Success

    ByAlex Strauss

    There’s more evidence that experimental mesothelioma drugs that inhibit focal adhesion kinase (FAK) may have the ability to dramatically improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy for thousands of mesothelioma patients. Verastem, Inc., the developer of the FAK inhibitors VS-6063 and VS-4718, has just published a new paper on the mechanism by which these drugs work in the medical journal Science Translational Medicine. The research describes how FAK inhibitors make certain mesothelioma cells more susceptible to common chemotherapy drugs like Alimta (pemetrexed) and cisplatin. About half of mesothelioma patients are missing a tumor suppressor called merlin, which can be both good and bad news. Unfortunately, cancers that demonstrate merlin loss tend to be particularly aggressive and mesothelioma is known for its aggressiveness….

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    Mesothelioma Remains a Serious Risk for Shipbreaking Workers

    ByAlex Strauss

    Taiwanese researchers who conducted one of the few long-term studies of cancer among shipbreaking workers are calling for more “preventive measures” to protect these workers from deadly malignant mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is the most serious of a group of diseases caused by exposure to asbestos. Fire- and heat-resistant asbestos was commonly used to insulate ships starting in the 1920s, long before its health risks became public knowledge. People who now work to dismantle and demolish these old ships run the risk of encountering crumbling asbestos and raising their lifetime risk of mesothelioma. Noting that shipbreaking remains one of the world’s most dangerous jobs, public health and occupational medicine experts from several Taiwanese universities studied cancer incidence among more than 4,000 shipbreaking…