BAP1 Mutation Unlikely to Trigger Sporadic Mesothelioma
| | | | | | |

BAP1 Mutation Unlikely to Trigger Sporadic Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

But researchers at the Clinic of Oncology at the University Hospital of Zurich and University Hospitals in Leuven, Belgium say they have evidence to show that BAP1 mutations account for only a tiny percentage of sporadic mesothelioma cases. Mesothelioma is normally associated with exposure to asbestos dust and previous studies have found that people with the BAP1 mutation are more susceptible to cancer-causing effects of asbestos. Twenty-three percent of mesothelioma tumor specimens have been found to have a mutated BAP1 gene. But some cases of mesothelioma appear to arise “sporadically”, with no history of asbestos exposure.  Researchers around the world have long been trying to pinpoint the reasons these sporadic mesothelioma cases develop in an effort to prevent and/or treat…

Chemotherapy May be Underutilized for Mesothelioma
| | | | | |

Chemotherapy May be Underutilized for Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Doctors from the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute and Sydney Medical School reached their conclusions by comparing data on mesothelioma patients and their tumor characteristics with evidence-based mesothelioma treatment guidelines. They used special “decision analysis software” to calculate what they say is the optimal utilization rate for chemotherapy in mesothelioma. “Chemotherapy is recommended at least once during the disease trajectory in 65% of malignant pleural mesothelioma patients,” writes author Stephen Chuan-Hao Kao. According to Dr. Kao and his colleagues, that optimal rate is relatively close to what is being done for mesothelioma patients in Canada where 61% of patients got chemotherapy between 2003 and 2005 and in Australia where the rate was 54% between 2007 and 2009. Unfortunately, the Australian study…

Fine Needle Biopsy: An Easier Way to Diagnose Mesothelioma?
| | | | | |

Fine Needle Biopsy: An Easier Way to Diagnose Mesothelioma?

ByAlex Strauss

IExamining the tissue from a suspected tumor under a microscope is currently the only way to definitively diagnose suspected mesothelioma. But doctors at the University of Catania say cutting-needle biopsy, the pleural biopsy technique used by most surgeons, may be unnecessarily painful for patients. In their response to a recent published article on the subject in the journal Chest, Dr. Marco Sperandeo and colleagues present the case for what they say is a less traumatic type of biopsy – thoracic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration. According to the Italian researchers,  “These tools, quite neglected, are complementary to CT imaging in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) or lung cancer (LC), are less traumatic, and are equally or more successful, with minimal…

Mesothelioma Subtype Predicts Poor Survival Odds
| | | | |

Mesothelioma Subtype Predicts Poor Survival Odds

ByAlex Strauss

Histological subtyping, which involves classifying mesothelioma types by certain microscopic features, plays a crucial role in diagnosis, treatment, and determining life expectancy in malignant pleural mesothelioma. The three major subtypes of pleural mesothelioma are epithelioid, sarcomatoid, and biphasic. While all three types carry a poor prognosis, epithelioid mesothelioma, which accounts for 50 to 70 percent of cases, usually responds better to treatment than the other two types. But a new published study suggests that that is not always the case. Doctors at the University of Zagreb School of Medicine in Croatia say there is a subtype of epithelioid mesothelioma that carries as poor a prognosis as the sarcomatoid and biphasic types. To reach that conclusion, the team analyzed biopsy specimens and…

Blood Pressure Drug May Offer New Hope for a Mesothelioma Cure
| | | | |

Blood Pressure Drug May Offer New Hope for a Mesothelioma Cure

ByAlex Strauss

Japanese researchers say a drug used to treat high blood pressure may finally present an effective way to combat this deadly cancer. The drug is call naftopidil. It is marketed in the U.S. under the brand name Flivas and is known as an alpha blocker or an alpha-adrenergic antagonist. In addition to high blood pressure, naftopidil is used to treat certain prostate conditions and Raynaud’s disease. There is increasing evidence that it may also have antitumor properties on a variety of cancer types, including prostate cancer. Respiratory medicine researchers at Hyogo College of Medicine in Nishinomiya, Japan have been studying the effects of naftopidil on mesothelioma for several years. In their most recent study, they tested naftopidil on mesothelioma cells…

Longer Mesothelioma Survival Not Always Linked to Specific Treatments
| | | | | | |

Longer Mesothelioma Survival Not Always Linked to Specific Treatments

ByAlex Strauss

A new study conducted in Australia contains some good news and some bad news for people with malignant pleural mesothelioma and their loved ones. The findings indicate that it is possible to survive longer with pleural mesothelioma, but survival may not have as much to do with specific treatments as scientists have thought. The study focused on 910 patients from New South Wales, Australia, an area with a rich history of asbestos mining. Patients were all registered with the New South Wales Dust Diseases board between 2002 and 2009. Researchers from the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute and Sydney Medical School used the database to compile a list of prognostic factors that appear to impact mesothelioma survival. Ninety percent of study…

Light-based Diagnostic Tool May Find Early Mesothelioma
| | | |

Light-based Diagnostic Tool May Find Early Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Cancer researchers in Japan say technology that uses fluorescent light to detect cancer cells could be used to help find early evidence of malignant pleural mesothelioma. The technology is based on a phenomenon called autofluorescence, explained by the Japanese research team as “the spontaneous emission of light that occurs when mitochondria, lysosomes, and other intracellular organelles absorb light”. Normal cells produce green autofluorescence in response to a certain type of blue light. But in mesothelioma and other cancer cells, the green autofluorescence is reduced and the light emitted shifts to a red-violet. Doctors at the Department of Respiratory Center at Asahikawa Medical University in Hokkaido used this photodynamic diagnostic system to find tiny clusters of mesothelioma cells on the surface…

Cholesterol Drugs Ineffective Against Mesothelioma
| | | |

Cholesterol Drugs Ineffective Against Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

A new study from the University of Western Australia has dealt a blow to the idea that the anti-cancer properties of statin drugs could help fight malignant pleural mesothelioma. Statins are a group of drugs that are typically used to lower high cholesterol and treat heart disease by blocking a substance the body needs to make cholesterol. Statins have been found to induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) in mesothelioma cells and epidemiological evidence has suggested that people on statins have a lower incidence of cancer. Based on these facts, researchers at Australia’s National Center for Asbestos Related Diseases hypothesized that statin drugs might be used to slow the progression of mesothelioma in patients who have it, and possibly even prevent mesothelioma development…

Unexpected Mesothelioma Deaths in Fiberglass Workers Raise Questions
| |

Unexpected Mesothelioma Deaths in Fiberglass Workers Raise Questions

ByAlex Strauss

A team of scientists with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have good news and bad news for people exposed to styrene and fiberglass in the boatbuilding industry. The good news is that the workers tested do not appear to be at higher risk for the blood cancers leukemia or lymphoma.  The bad news is that, for reasons that are not fully understood, they do appear to have a higher chance of getting malignant pleural mesothelioma or ovarian cancer. The NIOSH team in Cincinnati examined the causes of death through 2008 of 5,203 workers at two boatbuilding plants in Washington state. The workers had all been exposed to styrene, fiberglass, and wood dust between 1959 and 1978. Styrene…

Enzyme Makes Mesothelioma More Aggressive, Less Responsive to Treatment
| | | | | |

Enzyme Makes Mesothelioma More Aggressive, Less Responsive to Treatment

ByAlex Strauss

There’s new evidence that a glycoprotein produced on the surface of some mesothelioma cells could have a major impact on disease progression and treatment outcomes – especially in patients with the biphasic form of the disease. Biphasic mesothelioma accounts for about 20 to 35 percent of mesothelioma cases and is generally considered even more difficult to treat than the more common epithelioid mesothelioma. Now, a team of Italian researchers from the University of Torino say they have discovered one of the factors that may influence the aggressiveness of biphasic mesothelioma. The focus of their new study is a molecule called CD157, an enzyme that has been associated with ovarian cancer. Because the epithelial cells of the ovaries and the cells…