Kidney Risk May be Unavoidable with Top Mesothelioma Drug
Italian scientists studying the popular mesothelioma chemotherapy drug pemetrexed (Alimta) have some sobering news for patients: Kidney damage remains a risk, even in patients whose kidney function tests are on the low end of normal. Doctors in the nephrology and dialysis unit at St. Andrea Hospital in La Spezia, Italy, performed a retrospective evaluation of 38 patients with non-small cell lung cancer who developed kidney injuries after being treated with pemetrexed. Twenty nine of the study participants had no other risks for renal damage. The guidelines for administering pemetrexed to patients with mesothelioma, NSCLC, and other types of cancer say that the patient’s eGFR, a measure of kidney function, should be higher than 45. Although all of the patients in…