Cracking the Code: Calretinin’s Role in Understanding Mesothelioma
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Cracking the Code: Calretinin’s Role in Understanding Mesothelioma

ByHolly Zink

Mesothelioma is a tough cancer that is hard to figure out. Scientists are looking at a protein called Mesothelin that could help. This protein might be a clue to the cancer, but we need an easier way to check it. In this study, scientists dig into Mesothelin, see how it affects cancer, and introduce a new way to look at it without being too invasive. Breaking Down Mesothelin and How It Works Results of this new study found that Mesothelin is higher in one type of mesothelioma and keeps going up as the cancer grows. This type is called the epithelial kind. When Mesothelin goes up, it makes certain things in the cancer cells increase. This makes the cancer cells…

Radical Surgery Outcomes Better in Women
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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…