Maintenance Therapy with Gemcitabine Extends Mesothelioma Survival in Dutch Study
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Maintenance Therapy with Gemcitabine Extends Mesothelioma Survival in Dutch Study

ByAlex Strauss

Dutch researchers say administering maintenance therapy with gemcitabine after chemotherapy may help mesothelioma patients live longer than supportive care alone.  Gemcitabine is an antimetabolite sold under the brand name Gemzar. Oncologists use it to treat several other types of cancer. When cancer cells absorb gemcitabine, they can no longer divide into new cancer cells.  Most mesothelioma patients have chemotherapy as their first-line treatment. If they are healthy enough, they may also have mesothelioma surgery. A maintenance therapy is a treatment that follows the main treatment. It is an effort to maintain the effects of the treatment.  The new Dutch study shows gemcitabine may be a safe and effective choice for maintenance therapy. What Does Maintenance Therapy Mean? Right now, there…

Defactinib Fails Again as a Maintenance Therapy for Mesothelioma
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Defactinib Fails Again as a Maintenance Therapy for Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

There has been another setback for a drug that showed promise as a maintenance therapy for mesothelioma. Defactinib is a focal adhesion kinase (FAK) inhibitor. FAK is a signaling pathway that allows stem cells to give rise to new cancer cells. The developers of defactinib hoped that FAK inhibition would help keep mesothelioma tumors from growing back after chemotherapy. But a team of international researchers has once again concluded that the drug does not work as a maintenance therapy for mesothelioma. In Search of a Maintenance Therapy for Mesothelioma Malignant pleural mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer that is very hard to treat. Standard chemotherapy drugs like pemetrexed, cisplatin, gemcitabine and vinorelbine can sometimes shrink tumors, but they usually come back. Doctors…

Alimta May Extend Mesothelioma Survival as a Maintenance Therapy
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Alimta May Extend Mesothelioma Survival as a Maintenance Therapy

ByAlex Strauss

T Scientists in Japan have just published details of a case they say could be pivotal to the treatment of intractable malignant pleural mesothelioma. Pleural mesothelioma is usually caused by exposure to asbestos and starts in the membrane around the lungs. Although there is no cure for mesothelioma, a chemotherapy combination of the platinum drug cisplatin and the anti-folate pemetrexed is considered to be the gold standard drug therapy. Unfortunately, many patients cannot tolerate high doses of cisplatin because of the danger of liver damage. But respiratory medicine specialists at Uji Tokushukai Medical Center in Japan say this problem may be tackled for some mesothelioma patients by continuing to give them pemetrexed. Dr. Takayuki Takeda and his team report the…