Author: Alex Strauss

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    Navy Can Be Blamed for Mesothelioma Death

    ByAlex Strauss

    A California Appeals Court says the U.S. Navy can legally be blamed for failing to protect one of its shipyard workers from the asbestos that eventually took his life. Ulysses Collins died of mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos, in 2005 at the age of 65.  Collins had spent 30 years working as a welder and pipefitter in various California Naval shipyards.  Collins and his family brought suit against 17 companies, including Plant Insulation, one of the major manufacturers of the asbestos insulation heavily used by the Navy.  A jury found in the Collins’ favor and awarded them $10 million, but the jury questioned why the Navy was not named as one of the entities at fault. At the time, the…

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    California’s State Rock Could Cause Mesothelioma

    ByAlex Strauss

    The first state to have a state rock is about to strip that rock of its title. California legislators are considering a measure to take serpentine, a greenish-gray rock which is plentiful throughout the state, off the list of state symbols.  Serpentine was designated the ‘state rock’ in 1965, before it was known that fine shards of one of the elements in it, asbestos, can causemesothelioma.  When serpentine is broken up during construction or excavation, the asbestos dust released can be a public health hazard. Asbestos was once prized for its resistance to heat and chemical degradation and was widely used in a variety of construction and shipbuilding applications.  But asbestos fibers are sharp and about 100 times narrower than…

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    Mesothelioma Risk from Limited Asbestos Exposure

    ByAlex Strauss

    Doctors have long known that asbestos exposure in the workplace significantly increases the risk for mesothelioma, but now they’ve discovered that even workers who have had relatively low exposure to asbestos are at increased risk for this deadly cancer, according to a study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The study also suggests that the man-made fibers often used to replace asbestos in manufacturing may also be increasing workers’ mesothelioma risk. Most asbestos cases including mesothelioma have been linked to occupational asbestos exposure, and particularly from exposure to the amphibole type of asbestos. Still uncertain is the risk from man-made vitreous fibers (MMVF), which are often used as a substitute for asbestos. MMVFs are similar in structure to…

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    German Mesothelioma Study Has Surprising Result

    ByAlex Strauss

    More invasive surgery doesn’t necessarily improve survival in patients with pleural mesothelioma. A less invasive approach is just as safe and effective, and it helps patients stay healthy enough to undergo additional chemotherapy and radiation treatments, according to a study published online September 16 in the journal, Lung Cancer. Because individual treatments have not had much success against mesothelioma, triple therapy including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation has emerged as the treatment of choice. Surgeons can choose from several different types of procedures, including extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) or pleurectomy/decortication (P/D). However, no official guidelines exist to help them make the decision. “There aren’t prospective, randomized trials comparing different surgical options,” explains Servet Bölükbas, MD, PhD, a surgeon at Dr. Horst Schmidt…

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    Mesothelioma Triple Therapy Found Safe and Effective

    ByAlex Strauss

    An aggressive treatment strategy that begins with chemotherapy, followed by surgery, and then radiation is a safe and effective option for many mesothelioma patients, according to a recent study in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Mesothelioma traditionally hasn’t responded well to just one treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation). In the early 1990s, Dr. David Sugarbaker of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston reported on the use of combining therapies. When he treated mesothelioma patients with extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP—surgery to remove the diseased lung, as well as the diaphragm and the membrane covering the heart and lung), followed by chemotherapy and radiation, the results were promising. Researchers at the Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle, Washington, tried to replicate this triple-treatment…

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    Mesothelioma and SS1P Therapy – Some Promise

    ByAlex Strauss

    Delivering a continuous dose of a new immunotoxin therapy, SS1P, is safe and shows some effectiveness against mesothelioma and other mesothelin-positive cancers. However, the drug doesn’t appear to be any more effective when given by continuous infusion than in several intermittent doses, according to a recent study published in the journal, Clinical Cancer Research. Some types of cancer, including mesothelioma, ovarian, and squamous cell cancers, display a protein called mesothelin in larger-than-normal amounts. Researchers are using this unique characteristic to develop new treatments for these cancers. One potential new treatment, called SS1P, is an immunotoxin—an antibody attached to a toxic substance that binds to and kills mesothelin-positive cancer cells like mesothelioma. “SS1P contains an antibody fragment which binds to mesothelin…

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    Mesothelioma Influenced by Vitamin A?

    ByAlex Strauss

    Vitamin A is a very important vitamin to maintaining health. We all know it is found in foods like carrots and is important in maintaining eyesight. Now, several independent research studies over the last three decades have suggested that vitamin A could possibly have an impact on managing and preventing mesothelioma. Vitamin A has many essential functions in the human body including: sustaining vision, bone growth, reproduction, cell division, cell differentiation and helping to maintain the immune system – the body’s defense against infection. Vitamin A comes from animal sources (such as liver and whole milk) and plant sources. Retinoids which are chemically related to vitamin A have been implicated as anti-carcinogenic. For example, according to an article published in…

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    Mesothelioma Survival Improved by Adding Heated Chemotherapy to Surgery

    ByAlex Strauss

    Delivering a high dose of heated chemotherapy directly into the chest and abdomen during mesothelioma surgery improves patients’ survival without compromising their safety, according to a recent study published in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. The researchers say their results provide real evidence that adding chemotherapy or other drugs to surgery could improve the outcome for mesothelioma patients, particularly those with early-stage cancers. “The exciting thing about this is that a new platform for therapy has been established,” says lead author David J. Sugarbaker, MD, Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Any potentially effective therapy is good news to mesothelioma researchers, because this cancer has traditionally been…

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    Alimta Reportedly Caused Lung Injury

    ByAlex Strauss

    A Japanese medical journal recently reported a case of pemetrexed-induced acute lung injury in a patient with mesothelioma. In the U.S., Alimta is the brand name for pemetrexed. According to this report a 65-year-old man was admitted to the hospital after complaining of shortness of breath. Doctors ordered a chest x-ray which showed that the patient had excess fluid that had accumulated in the left pleural cavity, the fluid-filled space that surrounds the lungs. A chest CT scan was ordered which revealed multiple pleural masses on the left side. A needle biopsy removed a specimen from one of the masses and pathology tests were performed on the sample. The diagnosis of malignant pleural mesothelioma was subsequently made. The patient was…

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    James Hardie’s Mesothelioma and Asbestos Legacy Continues

    ByAlex Strauss

    Most Americans have never heard of a company called James Hardie, but to many Australians this name conjures up an enormous death toll from asbestos. It has been alleged that this company is responsible for thousands of past and future Australian deaths from mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis. Founded in Melbourne Australia in 1888 by James Hardie the company produced asbestos related products such as building products, insulation, and brake linings. In March 1987 it stopped manufacturing the asbestos containing products but, it was already too late. Mesothelioma and other asbestos related diseases have a long latency period from the time of asbestos exposure to disease diagnosis. Thousands of Australians who had worked for James Hardie or had come in…