Induction Therapies Improve Mesothelioma Surgery Outcomes
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Induction Therapies Improve Mesothelioma Surgery Outcomes

ByAlex Strauss

An induction therapy is the first in a series of therapeutic measures, which, in the case of mesothelioma, may include chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, immunotherapy or other types of experimental treatments.  Because mesothelioma is so treatment-resistant, most patients require a combination of therapies to see results, an approach that clinicians refer to as “multi-modality.” Dr. Laura Donahoe and her colleagues at Toronto Mesothelioma Research Program recently published their summary of novel induction therapies being test for pleural mesothelioma, including a new protocol that they have developed for radiotherapy prior to mesothelioma surgery. The protocol consists of accelerated hemithoracic (one side of the chest) radiation followed by lung-removing extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) surgery. “The rationale behind this protocol is to maximize both the…

Ape Virus Shrinks Mesothelioma Tumors in Lab
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Ape Virus Shrinks Mesothelioma Tumors in Lab

ByAlex Strauss

A virus that causes leukemia in gibbon apes may have the power to help fight malignant mesothelioma in people. Gibbon ape leukemia virus (GALV) has been tested for years as a viral vector, a carrier of therapeutic genetic information, in the treatment of various human illnesses, including cancer. A new study in Japan compared GALV with a leukemia virus derived from mice to see which carrier communicated most efficiently with mesothelioma cells. While both types of viruses replicated in most of the mesothelioma cell lines tested, the mouse-derived virus was not effective in a mesothelioma cell line called ACC-MESO-1. In this cell line, only the GALV spread efficiently both in culture and in mice that had been given human mesothelioma…