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…

New Regimen May Help Mesothelioma Patients Avoid Chemotherapy Skin Rash

New Regimen May Help Mesothelioma Patients Avoid Chemotherapy Skin Rash

ByAlex Strauss

A single dose of medicine prior to chemotherapy may be enough to ward off an uncomfortable side effect for mesothelioma patients, giving them one less thing to worry about prior to treatment. Doctors from four different US medical centers just released their findings on a new and potentially easier protocol for preventing pemetrexed-related skin rash. Pemetrexed (Alimta) is the most popular drug for malignant pleural mesothelioma and remains the only drug approved specifically for this rare cancer.  It is also used to treat non-small cell lung cancer. Most patients on pemetrexed experience side effects, one of which is an itchy, blistering skin rash. While the rash is not usually serious, in some rare cases it can progress and even be…

Surgical Experience Improves Outcomes in Peritoneal Mesothelioma
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Surgical Experience Improves Outcomes in Peritoneal Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

When it comes to surgical intervention for peritoneal mesothelioma, the most experienced centers tend to have the best outcomes. The latest study to support this idea comes from researchers in the Peritoneal Malignancy Institute in Basingstoke, UK. The authors of the new study on peritoneal malignancies including mesothelioma published their research in the British medical journal Colorectal Disease. They performed a retrospective analysis on a database of 1,200 patients treated for peritoneal cancers since 1994. Most of these patients had a diagnosis of cancer of the appendix, but just over 5 percent had peritoneal mesothelioma. The goal of the study was to determine trends in cancer survival after cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). For peritoneal mesothelioma, the surgery involves…

Fast Neutron Radiotherapy Not an Answer for Mesothelioma
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Fast Neutron Radiotherapy Not an Answer for Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

A special kind of targeted radiotherapy that uses high energy neutrons instead of protons or electrons to kill cancer cells is unlikely to significantly improve outcomes for patients with mesothelioma. That word comes from a top radiation oncologist at one of the few cancer centers in the United States where “fast neutron” radiotherapy is available. Because high-energy neutrons can do more serious damage to the DNA of cancer cells than other types of radiotherapy, fast neutron radiotherapy is sometimes considered more effective for certain types of cancer, particularly if the cancer is inoperable as is often the case with mesothelioma. This type of treatment can also produce more serious side effects than standard radiation therapy. It is considered one of the…

Immunotherapy Drug: More May be Better for Advanced Mesothelioma
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Immunotherapy Drug: More May be Better for Advanced Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

The same team of Italian researchers that first reported on the safety and efficacy of the immunotherapy drug tremelimumab for mesothelioma now say that giving more of the drug might be even more effective. Tremelimumab is a monoclonal antibody that acts on a particular downregulator of the immune system called cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA4). The goal of tremelimumab is to inhibit the immune system tolerance to tumors, which tends to allow them to grow unchecked. When CTLA4 is reactivated with a drug like tremelimumab, it regains its ability to attack tumors. Based on the results of their 2013 study that showed a 31% rate of disease control in patients with unresectable mesothelioma who were given tremelimumab, the team tested…

Mesothelioma Vaccine Receives Orphan Drug Approval
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Mesothelioma Vaccine Receives Orphan Drug Approval

ByAlex Strauss

Mesothelioma patients who are not candidates for surgery may soon have another treatment option. The FDA has granted orphan drug approval to a new cancer vaccine called CRS-207. CRS-207 is manufactured by Aduro Biotech, Inc. and is made from an attenuated (less potent) version of the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. CRS-207 triggers a powerful immune response against cells that produce mesothelin, a tumor-associated antigen produced by several types of cancer, including mesothelioma. Because it works in conjunction with the body’s natural immune responses, CRS-207 is classified as a type of immunotherapy. Aduro Biotech is currently enrolling mesothelioma patients in a Phase 1b clinical trial of CRS-207. They are looking for 40 mesothelioma patients who have inoperable cancer and have not yet…

HIPEC Variation May Benefit Frail Mesothelioma Patients
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HIPEC Variation May Benefit Frail Mesothelioma Patients

ByAlex Strauss

A method of delivering heated chemotherapy drugs to the abdomen after the surgical wound has been closed may produce better outcomes than an open technique for fragile or elderly mesothelioma patients. The study was conducted by surgery departments at three different Greek hospitals. Study subjects included 105 patients with either mesothelioma or another peritoneal malignancy. All of the patients were recommended for cytoreductive surgery to remove as much of their cancer as possible followed by a rinse of heated chemotherapy drugs at the site of the surgery (HIPEC) to kill any residual cancer cells and prevent recurrence. Sixty of the patients with mesothelioma or another cancer received HIPEC using an open abdomen technique. In this technique, the chemotherapy solution is…

Mesothelioma Prognosis: Some Markers More Useful than Others
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Mesothelioma Prognosis: Some Markers More Useful than Others

ByAlex Strauss

Deciding which treatments to try and determining whether they are working are two of the biggest challenges for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.  But a team of researchers in the UK is trying to make the process a little easier. They have identified three markers the say can help doctors predict prognosis in mesothelioma patients and monitor their response to treatment. The South West Area Mesothelioma and Pemetrexed trial, based in the Southwestern part of England, recruited 73 pleural mesothelioma patients between 2008 and 2011. Fifty-eight of the patients elected to undergo chemotherapy with pemetrexed (Alimta) for their mesothelioma and 15 opted only for best supportive care, without chemotherapy. Before treatment began, the researchers used PET-CT to test each patient’s baseline…

New Delivery System May Make Popular Mesothelioma Drug More Effective
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New Delivery System May Make Popular Mesothelioma Drug More Effective

ByAlex Strauss

There is new evidence that an advanced method of delivering medicine directly into diseased cells could help make the world’s only FDA-approved mesothelioma drug more effective. Pemetrexed (Alimta) was approved for the treatment of pleural mesothelioma in 2004 and remains the only drug specifically for the treatment of this intractable cancer. Because of its toxicity, pemetrexed can’t be given in very high doses and usually has to be combined with another drug, such as cisplatin, when it is given to mesothelioma patients. Unfortunately, even this “gold standard” drug treatment is only effective about 40 percent of the time. But a new drug delivery system may boost the effectiveness of pemetrexed and improve outcomes for pleural mesothelioma patients.  Researchers in Egypt and…

Could Deliberate Lung Collapse Make Mesothelioma Procedure Safer?
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Could Deliberate Lung Collapse Make Mesothelioma Procedure Safer?

ByAlex Strauss

A group of researchers in the Oxford University Centre for Respiratory Medicine have evidence that, in certain cases,deliberately collapsing a lung could improve treatment for people with malignant pleural mesothelioma. In a recently published study in the journal Thorax, the group reported data that deliberately deflating a lung, called pneumothorax induction, can sometimes make it easier and safer to perform a surgical procedure called thoracoscopy. Local anesthetic thoracoscopy (LAT) is a minimally invasive method for examining or performing biopsies or surgeries in the pleural cavity around the lungs where mesothelioma starts. It utilizes an instrument called a thorascope with a light source and a lens. Using a thorascope, surgeons can perform procedures on mesothelioma patients without having to use general anesthetic…