mesothelioma patients

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    Mesothelioma Not Enough to Blacklist Asbestos

    ByAlex Strauss

    The 141 member nations of the international Rotterdam Convention have once again failed to add asbestos to their list of banned chemicals, much to the disappointment of mesothelioma patients, doctors and researchers worldwide. Asbestos has long been linked to the deadly cancer mesothelioma. It causes an estimated 2,500 new cases of mesothelioma in the U.S. each year and tens of thousands of cases elsewhere in the world.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 125 million people are exposed to asbestos in the workplace and more than 107,000 die each year from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.  Although the mineral is now regulated (though not banned) in the U.S., many third-world countries use it as a cheap building material with little…

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    Experience Improves Mesothelioma Surgery Outcomes

    ByAlex Strauss

    Mesothelioma patients who are candidates for surgery will have better outcomes and longer survival if their procedure is done in a specialty treatment center by a surgeon experienced in mesothelioma surgery. That is the conclusion of a team of surgeons in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia. The group set out to determine if survival statistics for mesothelioma surgery have improved over the years as doctors have gained more experience treating mesothelioma and adjuvant therapies have advanced. They analyzed the surgical treatments and survival results of 540 consecutive patients with malignant plural mesothelioma. The group was divided into two segments of 270 patients each. The first group was comprised of mesothelioma patients who…

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    Radiotherapy ‘Comparable to Chemo’ for Mesothelioma

    ByAlex Strauss

    A recent study has concluded that palliative radiotherapy produces a response rate in malignant pleural mesothelioma that is comparable to chemotherapy. A recent analysis of 54 mesothelioma cases at a hospital in Cheltenham, England found that 43 percent of patients who received palliative radiotherapy according to their hospital’s policy, responded to the treatment. Based on the results of their pre- and post-therapy CT scans, 22 of the 54 mesothelioma patients analyzed experienced a partial response and 1 patient had a complete response. Fifty-seven percent reported some improvement in their symptoms. In an effort to help determine which mesothelioma patients are most likely to respond to radiotherapy, the research team correlated treatment responses with the European Organisation for Research and Treatment…

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    Light-Based Mesothelioma Treatment Shows Promise

    ByAlex Strauss

    There is more evidence that Photodynamic Therapy may be a valuable adjuvant treatment for people undergoing mesothelioma surgery. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a light-based cancer treatment that uses a sensitizing drug and a light to destroy cancer cells several millimeters into the targeted tissue. Although it is not yet widely used for mesothelioma, PDT is considered particularly suitable for tumors on the mesothelium, which tend to be wide but not very deep. To test the effectiveness of PDT, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed the surgical outcomes of 28 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma between 2004 and 2008. The patients were similar in age, sex, stage of disease and histological type of mesothelioma. Eighty-six percent of the patients were…

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    New Treatments Offer Hope for Mesothelioma

    ByAlex Strauss

    A new published review of standard and investigational treatments for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) offers some hopeful news for mesothelioma patients. The article, published in Current Oncology Reports, analyzes an array of mesothelioma treatments, from new and existing chemotherapy drugs and new radiotherapy techniques to advances in immunotherapy and gene therapy. Chemotherapy The authors note that, although the chemotherapy combination of cisplatin and pemetrexed continues to be the preferred first-line treatment for mesothelioma, the newer combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin has also proven effective, especially in combination with the surgical procedure called extrapleural pneumonectomy and thoracic radiation. Other studies have also confirmed the value of the gemcitabine/cisplatin combination in Phase 2 clinical trials for inoperable mesothelioma. Radiation On the radiotherapy…

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    More Than Thirty Mesothelioma Clinical Trials Are Underway

    ByAlex Strauss

    Clinical trials are human studies of new drugs and treatments to determine whether or not they should be approved by the FDA. Clinical trials for mesothelioma are ongoing, primarily at major medical centers around the country. Because mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer, many trials are focused on ways to detect it earlier and treat it more effectively with various combinations of therapies. Although participation in a mesothelioma trial may sound like a good way to connect with promising new treatments, not every mesothelioma patient is a candidate. Because clinical trials are established with specific goals, most have very specific guidelines as to the type of patients they are willing to treat. For example, some trials only accept patients who have…

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    New Mesothelioma Biomarker May Also Improve Treatment

    ByAlex Strauss

    A study conducted by a group of San Francisco researchers suggests that a new biomarker may help make chemotherapy drugs more effective for mesothelioma patients. A biomarker is a substance present in tumor cells that can help doctors identify cancer.  Biomarkers are especially important in mesothelioma, a virulent cancer of the mesothelium, because it can be so difficult to diagnose.  Now, medical researchers at the University of California who have been studying melanoma cell adhesion molecule (MCAM) have found it to be an even more precise biomarker than mesothelin, the most common biomarker used to diagnose mesothelioma. MCAM is already being used to help identify other types of cancer including ovarian cancer and certain skin cancers. Unlike mesothelin, which is present in…

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    German Mesothelioma Treatment Keeps U.K. Man Alive

    ByAlex Strauss

    An advanced new mesothelioma treatment developed in Germany is credited for keeping a British man alive – four times longer than he was expected to live. Sixty-five year old Keith Turnbull of Hertfordshire contracted mesothelioma in 2008 because of asbestos from his father’s worth clothes. Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer that is highly resistant to traditional treatments. At the time of his diagnosis, doctors did not expect Turnbull to live beyond six months. But after 13 trips to Germany to received transarterial chemoembolization, Turnbull is still alive, two and a half years later. Transarterial chemoembolization, pioneered by German Professor Thomas Vogl of the J.W. Goethe University Hospital in Frankfurt, attacks tumors from two directions – simultaneously cutting off their blood…

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    Surgery is Inappropriate for Some Mesothelioma Patients

    ByAlex Strauss

    Patients with non-epithelial mesothelioma and lymph node involvement are poor candidates for the extensive surgical procedure known as extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), according to a new study. That’s the finding of a new article published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Researchers from the Baird Institute for Applied Heart and Lung Surgical Research in Sydney, Australia analyzed the current literature on EPP for malignant pleural mesothelioma. They examined the patient selection process and overall survival of surgical patients in major referral centers where EPP is performed. The most serious of the asbestos cancers, mesothelioma tends to spread quickly and is notoriously resistant to standard treatments. Clinical trials across the globe have confirmed that the best mesothelioma outcomes are seen in patients…

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    VATS Preventive Radiation Not Recommended for Mesothelioma

    ByAlex Strauss

    Mesothelioma patients who have thoracoscopic surgery should not necessarily have radiation to keep their cancer from spreading at the surgical site. That’s the conclusion of researchers in Oxford, England who recently published an article on the practice of prophylactic irradiation therapy (PIT) for mesothelioma. Malignant pleural mesothelioma, a serious asbestos-linked lung cancer, is notoriously difficult to diagnose and treat. Because blood and imaging tests are often inconclusive, for a definitive diagnosis many patients have to undergo surgery to remove mesothelioma tumor cells for examination under a microscope. With the use of a thoracoscope, a camera for viewing inside the chest cavity, this procedure can often be done through small puncture wounds instead of the large open incision it used to…