Leukemia Drug for Mesothelioma? Lab Tests Show It’s Possible
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Leukemia Drug for Mesothelioma? Lab Tests Show It’s Possible

New data suggests that doctors might have good luck using a leukemia drug to treat pleural mesothelioma. The drug in question is ponatinib. It sells under the brand name Iclusig. Ponatinib is a pill that inhibits certain enzymes that may lead to mesothelioma tumor growth.  A study carried out at the University of California showed that the leukemia drug kept mesothelioma cells from growing and spreading in the lab. It could give doctors a new treatment option for patients who do not respond to standard therapies.  How the Leukemia Drug Works Ponatinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Tyrosine kinases are enzymes that interact with certain proteins inside cells. Tyrosine kinases act as on/off switches for many cellular functions.  In some…

Leukemia Drug Fails Mesothelioma Trial
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Leukemia Drug Fails Mesothelioma Trial

An oral leukemia medicine doctor’s had hoped might help certain mesothelioma patients won’t be moving on to the next level of clinical trials. Phase II drug trials use human subject to determine a drug’s safe dose and measure its effectiveness.  In Phase II trials of dasatinib, a drug currently used for leukemia patients that have failed other treatments,  mesothelioma researchers found the medicine had “no activity” and was too toxic to justify its use. Caused by exposure to asbestos, mesothelioma is challenging to treat and effective therapies are limited.  Because of dasatinib’s success as a second-line treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia, doctors reasoned that it might help patients with inoperable mesothelioma.  In the study to test this hypothesis, 46 mesothelioma patients were…