Author: Alex Strauss

Canada | Immune Systems | Immunotherapy | International | New Drugs | Research | Treatments | Updates

Mesothelioma Community Hopeful About Newly Approved Immunotherapy Drug
ByAlex Strauss December 6, 2015March 16, 2017

Mesothelioma experts around the world are expressing excitement about the potential of the recently FDA-approved cancer drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab). The latest doctors to join the discussion on this possible mesothelioma treatment are medical oncologists from Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto. Dr. Safiya Karim and Dr. Natasha Leighl examine the “current landscape and future directions” for Keytruda as a treatment for mesothelioma in an article in the British medical journal Future Oncology. Unprecedented Results in Mesothelioma Trial Keytruda began to get national attention as a potential mesothelioma treatment after the results of a mesothelioma clinical trial were released earlier this year. In that trial, 76 percent of mesothelioma patients responded to treatment with Keytruda – a figure that the researchers called…

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New Studies | Prognosis | Research | Surgery | Treatments | Updates

The Mesothelioma Surgery Debate: Is it Over?
ByAlex Strauss December 3, 2015March 16, 2017

One of the country’s top experts in mesothelioma treatment says, when it comes to surgery, the evidence points to better survival with pleurectomy and decortication (PD) than with the more radical extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP). The controversy over which type of mesothelioma surgery is best has gone on for years, with strong disagreement between respected surgeons. But Raja Flores, MD, a thoracic surgeon and researcher with Mount Sinai Health System in New York, says, after years of comparative studies, including a new one from Turkey, the data points to PD as the better approach for optimizing mesothelioma survival. Two Types of Mesothelioma Surgery PD is the more conservative of the two mesothelioma surgical approaches. It involves removing the diseased pleural lining…

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Canada | International | Multi-Modality Therapy | New Studies | Radiation Therapy | Research | Surgery | Treatments | Updates

New Mesothelioma Treatment Approach Improving Survival
ByAlex Strauss November 30, 2015March 16, 2017

A new treatment protocol for malignant pleural mesothelioma has yielded what Canadian doctors are calling “encouraging” survival results. The approach combines two already accepted mesothelioma treatments in a new way for better outcomes in people with the deadly asbestos cancer. Mesothelioma Treatment Combines Radiation & Surgery According to the new report published by doctors in Toronto, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) followed by lung-removing mesothelioma surgery extended survival for patients with the most common subtype of pleural mesothelioma. “The median overall survival and disease-free survival was 51 and 47 months, respectively, in epithelial subtypes, compared with 10 and 8 months in biphasic subtypes,” reports study author and thoracic surgeon Marc de Perrot, MD, of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto. How…

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Asbestos | Asia | Biopsy | Diagnosis | International | Mesothelioma | Occupations | Scans | Updates

The Challenge of Diagnosing Malignant Mesothelioma
ByAlex Strauss November 27, 2015March 16, 2017

The case of a Japanese man whose mesothelioma went undetected until it claimed his life seven months later highlights the need for better and earlier mesothelioma diagnosis. The man is the subject of a new article published in the medical journal Case Reports in Oncology. Although the patient complained of chest pain for months, his doctors were never able to make a diagnosis of mesothelioma. Missed Mesothelioma Symptoms Although the 70-year-old Japanese patient worked in a field which might have exposed him to asbestos, his doctors did not immediately suspect mesothelioma when he began having one-sided chest pain. Chest pain is one of the classic symptoms of mesothelioma, but it is also a symptom of many other types of heart,…

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Europe | International | Multi-Modality Therapy | New Studies | Prognosis | Research | Surgery | Treatments | Updates

Second Surgery May Prolong Mesothelioma Survival
ByAlex Strauss November 24, 2015March 16, 2017

There is new evidence that surgery may be the most effective type of second-line treatment for malignant pleural mesothelioma. First-line therapies for malignant mesothelioma include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and experimental approaches such as immunotherapy. However, the waters become murkier after mesothelioma recurrence. There is no widely-accepted second-line treatment protocol for mesothelioma. Facts About Mesothelioma Relapse A new study conducted at University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland reveals some important facts about the way in which mesothelioma typically recurs after treatment. After examining the cases of 136 mesothelioma patients who underwent presurgical chemotherapy and extrapleural pneumonectomy surgery between 1999 and 2013, the team found that: Pleural mesothelioma usually recurs at the site of the original tumor. Seventy-nine (74%) of the 106 recurrences…

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Asia | International | Mesothelioma | Multi-Modality Therapy | New Studies | Radiation Therapy | Research | Surgery | Treatments | Updates

Trimodal Mesothelioma Treatment May Not Be Worth the Risk
ByAlex Strauss November 20, 2015March 26, 2019

Japanese researchers say trimodality treatment for mesothelioma that includes chemotherapy, extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), and post-surgical radiation may not be beneficial enough to justify the risk. Pleural mesothelioma is one of the most difficult cancers to treat because it grows quickly and is resistant to most conventional therapies. Most mesothelioma patients have to have a combination of treatments. The question for researchers is, which treatment combination will provide the best mesothelioma survival outcomes. Trimodality Treatment for Mesothelioma In the newest study on trimodality treatment for mesothelioma, the Japanese team enrolled newly-diagnosed pleural mesothelioma patients who had not yet had any treatment. Study participants were given a chemotherapy combination of pemetrexed and cisplatin to shrink their mesothelioma tumors. This was followed by EPP…

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Europe | International | Multi-Modality Therapy | Prognosis | Surgery | Treatments | Updates

New Method Could Help Identify Best Candidates for Mesothelioma Surgery
ByAlex Strauss November 19, 2015March 16, 2017

Peritoneal mesothelioma patients with high levels of a certain protein may not be good candidates for mesothelioma surgery. Italian researchers came to that conclusion after evaluating the medical records of 117 patients with peritoneal mesothelioma. The patients had all undergone the gold standard mesothelioma treatment of cytoreductive surgery (CRS) followed by heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). Characteristics of Mesothelioma Surgery Candidates Most of the mesothelioma patients included in the study (102) had the epithelioid type of peritoneal mesothelioma, a cancer that spreads across the lining of the abdomen. The rest had either sarcomatoid or biphasic mesothelioma. More than 80 percent of the patients were “optimally cytoreduced”, meaning that their mesothelioma surgeries removed as much of the disease as possible. All of…

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Genetics | New Studies | Prognosis | Research | Statistics | Updates

Study Finds Molecular and Clinical Gender Differences in Mesothelioma
ByAlex Strauss November 15, 2015March 16, 2017

Malignant pleural mesothelioma may act differently in men and women due to differences at the molecular level. Researchers in some of the nation’s top medical centers say understanding these gender-specific mesothelioma traits may lead to new and better treatments. “Insight into the survival advantage of female patients may advance the molecular understanding of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) and identify therapeutic interventions that will improve the prognosis for all MPM patients,” says study author Assunta De Rienzo, PhD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Understanding Gender-Specific Mesothelioma Traits Mesothelioma researchers have long known that women with mesothelioma have a survival advantage over male mesothelioma patients. Now, scientists at Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Baylor College of Medicine believe they are moving…

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Europe | Immune Systems | Immunotherapy | International | Multi-Modality Therapy | New Drugs | Research | Treatments | Updates

Fighting Mesothelioma with Immunotherapy Drug Tremelimumab
ByAlex Strauss November 13, 2015March 16, 2017

A new study on the immunotherapy drug tremelimumab for the treatment of mesothelioma has some good news and some bad news for mesothelioma patients and families. According to the UK authors of the new report, a number of studies indicate that tremelimumab shows promise as a potential new therapy for mesothelioma. On the other hand, it is still unclear whether the cost of the new drug will be worth the benefits to mesothelioma patients. “Even though clinical efficacy has been preliminarily demonstrated, the cost/benefit ratio of this drug for this neoplasm is yet to be ascertained,” writes study author Alice Guazzelli, a PhD researcher at the University of Salford in Salford, UK. Immunotherapy for Mesothelioma An immunotherapy drug is a drug…

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Genetics | New Drugs | Research | Treatments | Updates | Vaccine

Enzyme Blockers May Offer Innovative New Mesothelioma Treatment
ByAlex Strauss November 9, 2015March 19, 2019

Cancer drugs that block an enzyme called EZH2 could be a “tremendous innovation” for mesothelioma patients, according to researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Recent research on mice at Memorial Sloan Kettering found that elevated levels of EZH2 allowed mesothelioma to grow out of control and that blocking the enzyme inhibited the growth of mesothelioma tumors. A New Kind of Mesothelioma Drug? Fortunately, there are already EZH2-blocking drugs being tested for the treatment of other cancers. Researchers are hopeful that these drugs may turn out to be promising for mesothelioma treatment, as well. “Now that there’s a biological rationale for why these drugs would work in mesothelioma, this could be a tremendous innovation for patients,” says oncologist…

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