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…

Are Women More Vulnerable to Mesothelioma from Environmental Asbestos?
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Are Women More Vulnerable to Mesothelioma from Environmental Asbestos?

ByAlex Strauss

Although the study did find an elevated number of mesothelioma cases among plant workers, the biggest mesothelioma burden was among their spouses and other women who lived in the region. Almost half of the mesothelioma cases linked to the factory could be attributed to environmental, rather than occupational, exposure. Researchers with the Department of Preventive Medicine in Milan and the National Heart & Lung Institute at Imperial College London calculated mesothelioma incidence connected to an asbestos cement factory that operated in Broni, Italy from 1932 to 1993. Their goal was to compare the percentage of cases among the workers themselves with the number of cases among their families and those who simply lived near the plant. Data was collected between…

Women Much More Likely to Survive Mesothelioma than Men
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Women Much More Likely to Survive Mesothelioma than Men

ByAlex Strauss

A new study of more than 14,000 American mesothelioma patients finds that women are three times more likely to survive mesothelioma than men are. Researchers from the North Shore/Long Island Jewish Health System-Hofstra School of Medicine and Mount Sinai Health System in New York studied all pathologically confirmed mesothelioma cases in the national Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database between 1973 and 2009. Patients were analyzed by age, year of diagnosis, race, stage, treatments, gender and other factors. The team then used the data to assess the association between the various prognostic factors and survival. Of the 14,228 malignant pleural mesothelioma cases analyzed, 22% occurred in women. These women tended to be diagnosed at around the same cancer stage…

Radical Surgery Outcomes Better in Women
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Radical Surgery Outcomes Better in Women

ByAlex Strauss

Women with epithelial mesothelioma who receive induction chemotherapy prior to surgery have the highest chance of benefitting from the radical surgical approach known as extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP). That is the conclusion reached by a team of thoracic surgeons from nine Italian medical centers. The team collected outcome and survival data on 518 malignant pleural mesothelioma patients who underwent lung-removing extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) surgery between 2000 and 2010. Most of the patients in the study (84.4%) had the epithelial variety of mesothelioma, the most common subtype of pleural mesothelioma. A little over half of the study subjects had chemotherapy prior to their surgery. Known as induction or neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the goal of this treatment is to shrink mesothelioma tumors to improve…

Outlook Better for Women with Peritoneal Mesothelioma
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Outlook Better for Women with Peritoneal Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Women with diffuse malignant peritoneal mesothelioma have a better chance of success with surgery and chemotherapy than their male counterparts. That is the conclusion of researchers at the Baird Institute for Applied Heart and Lung Surgical Research in Sydney, Australia.  Using the records of 294 peritoneal mesothelioma patients treated at multiple institutions in the past two decades, the researchers set out to measure the impact of gender on overall survival after treatment. Peritoneal mesothelioma is a type of mesothelioma that spreads quickly across the mesothelial lining of the abdomen. Asbestos exposure is its only known cause. Because of the aggressive nature of the disease, mesothelioma is typically treated using a multi-modal approach. The subjects of the Australian study had all been…

Mesothelioma on the Rise in Aussie Women
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Mesothelioma on the Rise in Aussie Women

ByAlex Strauss

An Australian news service is reporting a spike in the number of women contracting mesothelioma and they are blaming the growing popularity of do-it-yourself home renovation. According to The Mercury.com, the number of Tasmanian female mesothelioma patients is up sharply in recent years.  The website quotes the president of Australia’s Asbestos Diseases Foundation, Barry Robson, as saying the new state-by-state government mesothelioma statistics due out soon could prove to be “stark reading”. “But we have already seen an increase in the number of women affected by asbestos-related conditions over the past decade or so and that is increasing,” Robson told the news source. In Australia, as well as elsewhere in the world, asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma have affected far more…

Mesothelioma Treatment Provides Survival Advantage to Women
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Mesothelioma Treatment Provides Survival Advantage to Women

ByAlex Strauss

A new study suggests that women have a survival advantage over men when it comes to treatment for the most common type of malignant pleural mesothelioma. Although as many as 90 percent of people who contract the asbestos-linked cancer are men, women who contract the disease in its most common form are more likely to respond well to aggressive treatment.  The study published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery reviewed 702 cases of malignant pleural mesothelioma.  Of those, 145 were women. The researchers found a definite difference in survival for men and women with one type of mesothelioma but they found no gender difference with the other type. Among the 450 men and women with the most common histological type…