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Mesothelioma and the Promising New Hippo Biomarker

ByHolly Zink

Mesothelioma and the Promising New Hippo Biomarker

A new review in Targeted Oncology looks at a promising new Hippo biomarker in malignant pleural mesothelioma.

The new biomarker is rooted in the mesothelioma molecular pathway. A molecular pathway is how molecules work together inside your body. These pathways control cell function. And they are important in developing mesothelioma treatments.

Think of molecular pathways as the airport tower controller. These pathways tell mesothelioma treatments where to go and what to do in the body. If doctors can understand how pathways work, they can develop better treatments.

The goal is to develop more, and more effective, mesothelioma treatments.

Promising Hippo Pathway in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

While several drugs have been approved for treating mesothelioma, there aren’t a lot. This is mostly because it is difficult to understand how mesothelioma works inside the body.

Mesothelioma is fairly uncommon compared with other cancers. This factor, combined with mesothelioma’s typically swift progression, has made it difficult to study the disease.

The current process is to wait for drugs to be approved for other cancers and then conduct clinical trials for their use in mesothelioma. But researchers are now working to develop new drugs specifically for the disease.

This brings us back to the study of its molecular pathways.

Understanding how the molecular pathways work is an important piece of the puzzle. The pathways are important in developing a better and quicker method for diagnosis. And they are even more important in understanding how mesothelioma works inside the body.

French physicians report that a growing number of researchers are now looking at one specific pathway. Many are focusing on the Hippo biomarker pathway in malignant pleural mesothelioma.

The Hippo pathway is the latest promising biomarker. It will make it easier to detect and diagnose mesothelioma at earlier stages. If clinicians can diagnose the disease earlier, it would improve the patient’s prognosis. And it is also helpful in the delivery of treatment in the body.

Research is still in the earliest stage for the Hippo biomarker pathway. But scientists are hopeful that this biomarker will hold the next breakthrough for mesothelioma.

Source:

Dubois, Fatéméh, Céline Bazille, Jérôme Levallet, Elodie Maille, Solenn Brosseau, Jeannick Madelaine, Emmanuel Bergot, Gérard Zalcman, and Guénaëlle Levallet. “Molecular Alterations in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: A Hope for Effective Treatment by Targeting YAP.” Targeted Oncology (2022): 1-25. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11523-022-00900-2

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