A problem for doctors who perform mesothelioma surgery is that it can be frustratingly difficult to identify the border between the tumor and the healthy cells surrounding it. As a result, your mesothelioma surgeon may end up cutting away too much tissue around the tumor’s edges — and, in the process, cause you to lose a
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The immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab shriveled pleural mesothelioma tumors, or at least caused them to stop growing, in fully three-quarters of the mesothelioma patients treated with it. So say researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania who presented this observation at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research
Carcinomatosis is a term used by mesothelioma doctors to mean that the disease’s cells are spreading within your body. When they speak of peritoneal carcinomatosis, it means mesothelioma tumors are popping up along the lining of your abdomen. One of the treatments mesothelioma doctors have developed to combat peritoneal carcinomatosis is hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy. Researchers
You go to the mesothelioma clinic because you’re showing symptoms of mesothelioma. The doctor runs some tests on you and, sure enough, you learn you’ve got mesothelioma. One of the first questions you’re almost certain to ask after receiving your mesothelioma diagnosis is: “How long have I got to live?” The doctor may or may
Novel immunotherapy agent CRS-207 recently won orphan drug status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which makes it more likely you’ll someday soon see it marketed specifically for the treatment of mesothelioma. The significance of orphan drug status is that it paves the way for the makers of therapeutic products such as CRS-207
Researchers in Europe have found that malignant pleural mesothelioma attacked with a combination of radical surgery, povidone-iodine hyperthermic pleural lavage, preventive radiotherapy, and systemic chemotherapy can be a safe and effective strategy for extending survival. Among patients treated with these four modalities all at once, median survival was 32 months. Notably, an average of 23
Your body’s immune system let you down by allowing mesothelioma to get started and establish a foothold on the lining of your lungs, abdomen or heart. Your immune system let you down again by not counterattacking forcefully enough to eradicate those vanguard mesothelioma cells before they could multiply and spread like wildfire. Those failures might
The targeted mesothelioma therapeutic agent tremelimumab appears to work, but to achieve best results it turns out you have to take more of it for a longer stretch than researchers envisioned. Fortunately, you’ll probably be able to tolerate the extra amount, according to research from Italy that appeared in the April 2015 issue of the
Mesothelioma treatments tend to be hit or miss. A therapy that works well for you might not work at all for the next guy in line, even though both your cases are similar, physiologically and medically. Mesothelioma doctors have never really understood why this is so. However, new research out of British Columbia appears to
This is sweet. Saccharin — the artificial sugar that once was feared to be carcinogenic — may prove itself a magic ingredient that stops the growth of mesothelioma. Researchers at the University of Florida Health Sciences Center discovered that saccharin interferes with the processes that allow aggressive cancers to spread. The researchers haven’t yet tested saccharin against
