Author: Alex Strauss

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    Mesothelioma Survival Impacted by Lack of Surgery

    ByAlex Strauss

    A team of surgical oncologists say failure to treat peritoneal mesothelioma with surgery is costing too many patients their lives. Researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin studied survival statistics for more than 1,500 patients with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma, a form of mesothelioma that occurs in the abdomen. They concluded that many more of them could survive longer if they were treated with surgery. Using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, the research team identified 1,591 patients diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma between 1973 and 2010. The median age of the studied patients was 74 years and most had metastatic disease, meaning that their mesothelioma had spread beyond the peritoneal membrane that lines the abdomen. Of those 1,591 peritoneal…

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    Mesothelioma Risk is Rarely Outlived

    ByAlex Strauss

    If you have been exposed to asbestos, whether at work or in the home, you may never outlive your risk of developing malignant mesothelioma. That unsettling finding comes from a recently-published medical stud conducted by researchers in Australia and Italy. Mesothelioma has a particularly long latency period, meaning it is not uncommon for it to take decades for this aggressive cancer to develop. To determine if asbestos-exposed individuals can ever consider themselves out of danger, the researchers compiled and analyzed data from eight separate previous studies on the relationship between asbestos exposure and mesothelioma development. Six of the studies focused on people with occupational exposure to the deadly toxin and the remaining two included people with residential asbestos exposure. Among…

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    Needle Biopsy an Effective Alternative for Some Mesothelioma Patients

    ByAlex Strauss

    Mesothelioma patients who are not good candidates for thoracoscopy can still get a definitive diagnosis with a procedure called cutting-needle pleural biopsy. A team of Oxford-based scientists compared the two procedures to determine whether ultrasound-guided cutting needle biopsy could produce enough tissue to diagnose mesothelioma. Mesothelioma, an asbestos-linked malignancy that starts on the membrane around the lungs, can be difficult to diagnose. At the same time, because so many patients do not develop symptoms until the disease is in its later stages, rapid and accurate diagnosis is critical. Although patients suspected of having mesothelioma may undergo imaging tests, blood tests for tell-tale biomarkers, and pleural fluid analysis, tissue biopsy and examination of the cells remains the only way to obtain…

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    Tracking Mesothelioma with FDG-PET

    ByAlex Strauss

    The imaging method called positron emission tomography (PET) using the radioactive tracer molecule 18F-FDG is a valuable way to both diagnose and track the progression of malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. Nuclear medicine researchers at a Hospital in Barcelona, Spain reviewed the diagnostic and treatment records of 60 people with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma, a form of mesothelioma that spreads on the membrane lining the walls of the abdomen. The study subjects included 34 women and 26 men with a mean age of 53. All the patients in the study had had multiple 18-F-FDG-PET scans to diagnose or track their cancer. Eleven of the studied patients had an FDG-PET scan prior to receiving treatment. In all cases, the scans showed characteristic mesothelioma disease…

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    Carbon Nanotubes: A New Cause of Mesothelioma?

    ByAlex Strauss

    There is some unsettling news out of China for people who work with or around multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are carbon-based synthetic molecules in the shape of concentric tubes. Their special shape makes them more resistant to chemicals than other types of carbon nanotubes and makes them valuable for use in electronics, optics, textiles and other areas of manufacturing. But Chinese researchers say these tiny particles, like the sharp particles of naturally-occurring asbestos, have the potential to cause mesothelioma in people who inhale them. Lead researchers Jiegou Xu of the Anhui Medical University College of Basic Medical Sciences in Hefei, China and his colleagues exposed laboratory rats to two different kinds of MWCNTs with disturbing results. Suspensions…

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    Virtual Community Can Ease Mesothelioma Stress

    ByAlex Strauss

    Mesothelioma patients and their families can reduce their stress and feel more supported by getting involved in an online community. That is the conclusion reached by researchers at in the Psychology Department at Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia. Writing in the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, lecturer Desiree Kozlowski and her colleagues reported on the first 30 days of a peer-to-peer virtual community of people with asbestos-related illnesses like mesothelioma. In the introduction to their report, the team observes that people with mesothelioma, a rare but aggressive lung-related cancer, often feel socially isolated and highly stressed by their life-limiting symptoms. In addition to coping with the challenges of mesothelioma diagnosis and treatment, patients who were negligently exposed to…

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    Protein Biomarkers in Mesothelioma Diagnosis, Prognosis and Treatment

    ByAlex Strauss

    Three separate teams of international researchers have confirmed that proteins found in the blood can reveal some vital information for the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of pleural mesothelioma. These new studies on mesothelioma biomarkers indicate that all three of the studied proteins have value, but for different reasons. The most recent study comes from researchers in the Czech Republic who found that serum mesothelin, a protein overexpressed in several types of cancer, is valuable to measure the severity of mesothelioma in people who have already been diagnosed, but is unlikely to help doctors find the disease earlier. Doctors in the Department of Respiratory Medicine in Palacky University Olomouc followed 239 asbestos-exposed workers for nearly 20 years. They found that mesothelin…

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    How Much Asbestos Can Cause Mesothelioma?

    ByAlex Strauss

    Avoid exposure to asbestos – especially if you are a smoker. That is the central message in an article by two Dutch cancer researchers who have some good news and some bad news about the link between asbestos exposure and malignant pleural mesothelioma. Pulmonologists Dr. Paul Baas and Dr. JA Burgers of AVL/NKI Cancer Center in Amsterdam analyzed a study of 58,279 Dutch construction workers from 1986 to 2007. The study, published by Offermans et al in the January 2014 issue of the Journal of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, confirmed what past research has found – that the risk of lung cancer, laryngeal cancer, and mesothelioma increased as asbestos exposure increased. “The risk of development of…

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    Radical Surgery Outcomes Better in Women

    ByAlex Strauss

    Women with epithelial mesothelioma who receive induction chemotherapy prior to surgery have the highest chance of benefitting from the radical surgical approach known as extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP). That is the conclusion reached by a team of thoracic surgeons from nine Italian medical centers. The team collected outcome and survival data on 518 malignant pleural mesothelioma patients who underwent lung-removing extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) surgery between 2000 and 2010. Most of the patients in the study (84.4%) had the epithelial variety of mesothelioma, the most common subtype of pleural mesothelioma. A little over half of the study subjects had chemotherapy prior to their surgery. Known as induction or neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the goal of this treatment is to shrink mesothelioma tumors to improve…

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    Using Genes to Predict Mesothelioma Chemotherapy Response

    ByAlex Strauss

    British genetic researchers say a mesothelioma patient’s genes can influence their response to chemotherapy and the knowledge may open the door for more individualized and successful mesothelioma treatments. The team from Guy’s Hospital and St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, focused on polymorphisms, genetic variations that can impact patients’ tolerance to Alimta- (pemetrexed) based chemotherapy. The combination of Alimta and a platinum derivative like cisplatin is currently the most popular first-line treatment for pleural mesothelioma. Using a genetic test called the Illumina Human Exome v 1.1 BeadChip, the researchers compared 28 polymorphisms on 11 key genes with clinical outcomes in patients with either non-small cell lung cancer or mesothelioma. All of the 136 study subjects were receiving combination chemotherapy with Alimta…