There are a number of ways your mesothelioma doctor can predict whether that extrapleural pneumonectomy procedure you might be considering is going to be successful. The problem is that your doctor cannot make such a prediction with 100 percent accuracy. But researchers from Canada and Japan have been jointly working to nudge the accuracy level
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The survival prognosis for diffuse malignant peritoneal mesothelioma is poor. But researchers at the Institute for Cancer Care at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore think improving it is possible. The way malignant peritoneal mesothelioma is often treated is with cytoreductive surgery, followed by hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy. The researchers have come to believe that this combined
A bill working its way through Congress threatens to make it harder for you to pay for mesothelioma treatment and related expenses. At the same time, the bill may make it easier for identity thieves to access your private personal information, according to consumer watchdogs. The bill is the Furthering Asbestos Claims Transparency Act. It
The effort to kill mesothelioma by infecting tumors with live viruses received a boost recently when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an oncolytic drug for treatment of skin cancer. The skin cancer drug is useless against mesothelioma. But FDA clearance of this drug is nevertheless important for mesothelioma research. It proves that
You and your mesothelioma doctor have been discussing the ins and outs of extended pleurectomy and decortication surgery. You like what this mesothelioma lung-sparing procedure offers. But the big question in your mind is how much extra time will it buy? Your doctor can’t give you a definitive answer. The surgery could extend your mesothelioma
The effort to develop a mesothelioma diagnostic tool that detects the cancer by analyzing breath samples is continuing and making impressive strides. Indeed, at the rate it’s going, the dream of simple, reliable, in-home diagnosis of mesothelioma could become a reality in the next five years or less. The latest gains on this front come
There’s good cholesterol and there’s bad cholesterol. But when it comes to malignant pleural mesothelioma, cholesterol is good only when it’s bad. Bad for the mesothelioma, that is. And the way it becomes bad for mesothelioma is by not being there at all. That’s what a team of scientists have determined in their experiments with
Two pharmaceuticals companies jointly testing a novel mesothelioma therapy are looking for 30 mesothelioma patients to join an early stage clinical trial now underway. The companies are Five Prime Therapeutics Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline. The mesothelioma therapy being investigated is a protein-based, fibroblast growth factor (FGF) ligand trap called FP-1039. FP-1039 — which also goes by the
You have a better chance of extending your survival after mesothelioma strikes if the disease is diagnosed early — and reliably. But that’s easier said than done because mesothelioma often defies early and sure diagnosis. The reason is that mesothelioma looks a lot like a number of other cancers. When mesothelioma is mistaken for some other
A new mesothelioma drug is being studied to see how effective it is at counteracting your natural resistance to chemotherapy. The drug is called methoxyamine. It’s a novel, clinical-stage small molecule inhibitor of the DNA base excision repair pathway. This pathway causes resistance to alkylating and antimetabolite chemotherapeutics — agents such as pemetrexed and cisplatin. The
