Sex Hormones May Account for Better Mesothelioma Survival in Women
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Sex Hormones May Account for Better Mesothelioma Survival in Women

ByAlex Strauss

There’s evidence that female sex hormones may help explain the better survival rates in women with peritoneal mesothelioma. The news could open the door for a new way to treat the disease. Peritoneal mesothelioma is a rare form of mesothelioma that attacks the membrane around abdominal organs. Like most forms of mesothelioma, it is believed to be caused by asbestos and carries a poor prognosis. In addition to being less likely to contract mesothelioma than their male counterparts, women are also less likely to die from it quickly. Now, researchers at St. George Hospital in Sydney, Australia think they may know why. The team analyzed data on 52 consecutive peritoneal mesothelioma patients treated with cytoreductive surgery and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy…

New Study Helps Explain How Asbestos Leads to Mesothelioma
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New Study Helps Explain How Asbestos Leads to Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

New research suggests that tiny proteins called cytokines may be to blame for much of the destruction caused by asbestos in the body. Asbestos is the top cause worldwide of malignant pleural mesothelioma, a rare but difficult-to-treat cancer that often kills patients within a year of diagnosis. When they are inhaled, asbestos fibers lodge in the lugs triggering irritation and inflammation that eventually causes cells to become malignant. But the exact mechanism that moves cells from irritation to mesothelioma is still poorly understood. Now, researchers in Brazil have uncovered another piece of the puzzle that may help explain how mesothelioma develops. According to a new published report, they have isolated two small signaling proteins called cytokines that appear to be…

Mesothelioma Cell Growth Slowed with New Gene Therapy
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Mesothelioma Cell Growth Slowed with New Gene Therapy

ByAlex Strauss

There’s new evidence that therapies that prevent cancer cells from forming new blood vessels may offer a better way to approach malignant pleural mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is the most deadly of several diseases caused by asbestos exposure, including lung cancer, asbestosis and pleural plaques. Most people who develop mesothelioma live less than a year after diagnosis. It is most common in people who have lived or worked around asbestos. Although the disease is resistant to most conventional cancer therapies, a new report published by doctors at the Hyogo College of Medicine in Japan and the University of Miami suggests that agents that prevent blood vessel growth, known as angiogenesis, may be more effective. To test the theory, they introduced angiostatin, endostatin…

The Link Between Pleural Plaques and Mesothelioma
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The Link Between Pleural Plaques and Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Fibrous thickening of the lung lining known as pleural plaques are a good indicator of asbestos exposure but they don’t necessarily mean that a person will development mesothelioma. That is the finding of a risk analysis released by a Princeton, New Jersey-based consulting firm. The firm studied the medical literature on pleural plaques to better understand the relationship between this common asbestos exposure side effect and the development of mesothelioma, the most deadly disease associated with asbestos. Pleural plaques typically develop two or three decades after asbestos exposure. They can grow on either the outer (parietal) pleura or the inner (visceral) pleura. While they can make breathing uncomfortable as they calcify over time, pleural plaques are not cancerous and have…

Aspirin Slows Mesothelioma Growth by Fighting Inflammation
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Aspirin Slows Mesothelioma Growth by Fighting Inflammation

ByAlex Strauss

A group of the world’s top mesothelioma researchers say aspirin may have a role to play in fighting malignant pleural mesothelioma. Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid or ASA) is an that is known to help reduce the incidence and spread of certain inflammation-related cancers. Mesothelioma, a cancer that starts on the membrane around the lungs and tends to grow and spread quickly, is caused by an inflammatory response to asbestos fibers. That response is related to an inflammatory molecule called high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1). Researchers at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, along with colleagues at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in New York and two Italian hospitals theorized that a drug that fights inflammation might fight mesothelioma, too. Using mice infected with…

Does Asbestos Type Impact Mesothelioma Development?
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Does Asbestos Type Impact Mesothelioma Development?

ByAlex Strauss

Another study appears to confirm what scientists have long believed – that crocidolite may be the most dangerous form of the deadly toxin, asbestos. All types of asbestos have been linked to mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other serious illnesses. But scientists in Poland recently found the largest number of mesothelioma cases in plants where crocidolite had ever been used. Crocidolite, or blue asbestos, is not as heat resistant as other types of asbestos, which made it less popular for commercial products like insulation, gaskets and seals. Instead, crocidolite was most often used to make asbestos cement products. These products were used around the world for decades and thousands of workers who helped make them have paid the price by contracting malignant…

Immunotherapy for Advanced Mesothelioma: Surgery May Be the Key
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Immunotherapy for Advanced Mesothelioma: Surgery May Be the Key

ByAlex Strauss

An exciting new research development may help make immunotherapy vaccines effective for more mesothelioma patients, including those with advanced disease who have not been able to benefit from these treatments. Immunotherapy works by harnessing the power of the body’s own immune system and directing it to attack cancer cells. Unfortunately, as mesothelioma tumors grow, they release increasing amounts of an immune system suppressor designed to ward off an attack. The bigger the tumor, the more powerful the immune suppression and the less effective immunotherapy drugs are likely to be. At the same time, larger mesothelioma tumors may also produce less mesothelin, a protein that can be used to help immunotherapy vaccines target cancer cells. With less mesothelin and strong immunosuppression,…

New Immune Therapies May Offer Best Hope for Mesothelioma
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New Immune Therapies May Offer Best Hope for Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Immunotherapies, cancer drugs designed to alter the immune system, are emerging as one of the most hopeful methods of treating and perhaps even curing malignant mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is an almost universally fatal cancer of the membranes that surround the lungs and line the abdomen. Conventional cancer therapies, including the chemotherapy regimen that has become the standard-of-care for mesothelioma, have done little to improve survival. Even after decades of research and the development of multi-modal treatments, most mesothelioma patients still die of the disease within a year of diagnosis. But now, the outlook for this deadly cancer may finally be changing thanks to the emerging field of immunotherapy. Immunomodulators target the body’s own anti-tumor responses, effectively “turning them on” by blocking the processes (usually…

IMRT for Long-Term Survival After Mesothelioma Surgery
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IMRT for Long-Term Survival After Mesothelioma Surgery

ByAlex Strauss

Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) can safely slow or even stop mesothelioma progression after surgery as long as the dose is just right. A team of Texas radiation oncologists reached that conclusion after studying the treatment results of 18 mesothelioma patients between 2005 and 2014. IMRT is a highly targeted form of high-dose radiation. While it can have a powerfully negative effect on tumor cells, it can also have an equally negative effect on healthy lung tissue. Some patients have even died from pulmonary toxicity caused by IMRT. But in a report published in the journal Oncology, doctors from Texas A & M Medical Sciences Center and Baylor Scott and White Hospital found that, as long as the radiation dose…

Genetic Mutation Improves Mesothelioma Survival Odds
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Genetic Mutation Improves Mesothelioma Survival Odds

ByAlex Strauss

Another new study has been released that supports the idea that mesothelioma patients who are missing the tumor suppressor called BAP1 are more likely to survive longer than those who have intact BAP1 genes. The BRCA-1-associated protein 1 (BAP1) gene is located on the chromosome 3p21. Because the job of BAP1 is to help suppress cancer, a mutation that causes this gene to be inactive raises the risk that a person could get mesothelioma or another cancer. BAP1 loss has also been associated with increased risk of skin cancer, renal cell cancer and some lung and breast cancers. But there appears to be an upside to BAP1 loss. Data published in the journal Pathology suggests that mesothelioma patients with BAP1…