mesothelioma

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    Australian Doctors Use Bacteria to Shrink Mesothelioma Tumors

    ByAlex Strauss

    Could bacteria responsible for problems ranging from sinusitis to food poisoning be used as a weapon in the fight against malignant mesothelioma? The results of a new study conducted by mesothelioma researchers at the University of Western Australia suggest that it might. The researchers focused their study on a compound made up of proteins produced by the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, also called ‘Staph’ bacteria. The compound has been used clinically to induce pleurodesis, a closing up of the pleural space around the lungs that can become fluid-filled in people with mesothelioma. Based on its success in pleurodesis, the Australian team wondered if the S. aureus protein compound could also shrink tumors. Scientists in the University’s Centre for Asthma, Allergy and…

  • Can Statins Enhance Mesothelioma Treatment?

    ByAlex Strauss

    The cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin may boost the cancer-killing power of the mesothelioma drug pemetrexed. That news, released by a team of Korean scientists, comes on the heels of another published study showing that the statin drug atorvastatin did not kill mesothelioma in either mice or humans. Although they are primarily used to lower high cholesterol, statin drugs have been shown to have pro-apoptotic properties, meaning they can trigger the dying process in certain cells. An Australian team that recently tested atorvastatin alone found no effect on mesothelioma. But the newest test of a statin for mesothelioma paired the drug simvastatin with the gold-standard chemotherapy drug pemetrexed with more promising results. “We found that the combination of pemetrexed and simvastatin induced more…

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    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…

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    Mesothelioma Management: Different Biomarkers Serve Different Functions

    ByAlex Strauss

    Australian researchers have attempted to settle the debate about the value of the newly proposed mesothelioma biomarker fibulin-3 compared with the gold standard biomarker mesothelin.  According to their new report in the journal Thorax, mesothelin is still the best marker for diagnosing mesothelioma but fibulin-3 is better at predicting mesothelioma outcomes. The multi-center study included 153 patients – 82 with pleural mesothelioma, 36 with other types of malignancies causing pleural effusions (excess lung fluid), and 35 with benign effusions. For comparison, the team also measured biomarker levels in the blood plasma of 49 people with non-mesothelioma asbestos-related diseases. Researchers measured mesothelin and fibulin-3 levels in both pleural effusions and blood plasma and determined that mesothelin provides the best diagnostic accuracy,…

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    Do Mesothelioma Doctors Rely Too Much on CT?

    ByAlex Strauss

    A team of researchers in the UK say doctors may be relying too heavily on the results of CT scans to determine which patients should have invasive biopsies for suspected pleural mesothelioma. Examining tumor cells under a microscope is currently the only way to definitively diagnose malignant pleural mesothelioma. However, because getting a cell sample means that a patient has to undergo surgery, doctors typically use non-invasive tests like CT first. CT scans have become an important part of the diagnostic process for malignant pleural mesothelioma. To see how valuable these tests really are for respiratory patients, experts from the Oxford Centre for Respiratory Medicine and the Lancashire Chest Centre in Preston, UK analyzed the CT scans and final diagnoses…

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    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…

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    Albumin Levels May Help Predict Mesothelioma Survival

    ByAlex Strauss

    People with the lowest levels of the blood protein albumin are less likely to live beyond a year with malignant pleural mesothelioma. That is the finding of a team of Chinese researchers who say this abundant protein may offer one of the simplest ways to predict mesothelioma prognosis. Serum albumin is a globular protein whose primary function is to carry steroids, fatty acids and thyroid hormones in the blood. It makes up about 60% of the total mass of protein in blood plasma.  Researchers in the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Shandong University Hospital in China have found that serum albumin levels prior to treatment appear to have a direct bearing on the odds of surviving mesothelioma. The study focused…

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    New Blood Test May Improve Diagnostic Accuracy for Mesothelioma

    ByAlex Strauss

    The developers of a new blood test for mesothelioma say it is much more accurate than previous tests and could improve diagnosis and disease monitoring. The new test is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) system designed to detect the protein N-ERC/mesothelin. N-ERC/mesothelin is overexpressed in mesothelioma and some other types of cancer. ELISA tests use antibodies that change color when they come in contact with a particular substance such as N-ERC/mesothelin. According to the Japanese researchers who developed and tested the new assay, the previous ELISA system developed in 2008 to detect N-ERC/mesothelin has been “unsatisfactory” and test results were difficult to reproduce. In contrast, the new 7-20 ELISA system produced more accurate positive mesothelioma diagnoses and fewer false negatives….

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    Kidney Risk May be Unavoidable with Top Mesothelioma Drug

    ByAlex Strauss

    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…

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    Genetic Variables Impact Mesothelioma Treatment Outcomes

    ByAlex Strauss

    Researchers in Slovenia say they may have found a method for determining which mesothelioma patients are most likely to respond to chemotherapy and which may have toxic side effects. The answers may lie in subtle genetic differences called polymorphisms. Chemotherapy with pemetrexed (Alimta) and a platinum-based drug like cisplatin is the primary first-line treatment for pleural mesothelioma. However, as the authors of the new report point out, there is great inconsistency in patient response to this treatment. The goal of their new study was to determine how polymorphisms impact the way mesothelioma patients respond to pemetrexed treatment. Mesothelioma patients treated with pemetrexed as part of a randomized clinical trial were sorted according to two types of polymorphisms – those of…