Source: Alfacell Corporation

Dr. Michele Carbone, one of the world's leading mesothelioma researchers, has discovered that Alfacell Corporation's ONCONASE has great potential as a chemopreventative agent for mesothelioma. ONCONASE triggers apoptosis, the natural death of cells, in cancer cells and has been shown to block the pathway that causes asbestos carcinogenesis. Dr. Carbone's initial research has shown that ONCONASE may be used as a chemopreventative agent for people who are at-risk for developing mesothelioma or it could be used to reduce the doses of cytotoxic agents in those who've already developed the disease. Dr. Carbone hopes to start clinical trials on this topic soon.

"The potential of ONCONASE as an early first-line preventative treatment for mesothelioma is an exciting development that we plan to investigate through clinical trials," said Dr. Carbone. "With approximately more than 25 million asbestos exposure cases reported worldwide, we believe that ONCONASE might play a greater role in the treatment protocols for a much larger population than was originally envisioned for this dismal disease."

Labels: asbestos, mesothelioma

Source: InsuranceNewsNet

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) has released its latest report on the patient profile of asbestos victims. Contrary to what many people's view are on asbestos exposure, ADAO reported that the average victim is aged 50, which is younger than what has been previously been reported, is a woman, also contrary to the expectation of men as the primary victim class, and, perhaps most disconcerting, that nearly forty percent had exposure that was environmentally-based and not work-related. Dr. Robert Taub, Milstein Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director of the Columbia University Mesothelioma Center in New York City, reported that the average age of peritoneal mesothelioma patients at his clinic is 51.7 and that less than fifty percent had immediately recognizable asbestos exposure.

These results from ADAO show that the patient profile for asbestos-related disease is changing. They note that in 1986 the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported that the median age was nearly 70 and another study estimated that eighty percent of patients were men. According to ADAO, studies estimate that as many as 100,000 victims in the United States alone will die of an asbestos-related disease over the next ten years.

Labels: asbestos, mesothelioma

Source: CancerMonthly.com

In an interview with CancerMonthly.com, Dr. David Sugarbaker, a thoracic surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, stated that the goal of every surgery for pleural mesothelioma should be a macroscopic complete resection (MCR), where all tumor tissue visible to the human eye is removed. According to Dr. Sugarbaker, if all of the visible tumor tissue can be removed, post-surgical drug treatment will have less tumor cells to eradicate, which should increase the likelihood of longer survival times.

Because mesothelioma can attack the pleural areas in multiple ways, different surgical techniques will be required for different malignancy types. If the tumors are limited to the surface of the lung then a pleurectomy, which is the surgical removal of tumors confined to the surface of the lung, can often achieve MCR. For those patients with a more invasive malignancy, where tumors have grown into the fissures of the lungs and other areas, an extrapleural pneumonectomy, where the affected lung, the covering of the heart, and the diaphragm are removed, may be required.

In all cases, Dr. Sugarbaker maintained, the needs of the mesothelioma patient — and not the services offered by the surgeon — should dictate the surgical methods utilized.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is calling on governments to enact meaningful reform to workplace safety laws and to increase the measures used to protect workers from work-related injury or death. At least 200,000 people die every year from work-caused cancers and millions more are regularly exposed to carcinogenic agents that can dramatically shorten their life expectancy. Mesothelioma, lung cancer and leukemia are just three examples of work-related cancers that can be prevented with the passage and enforcement of meaningful reform.

Specific WHO recommendations include:

• Stop the use of asbestos;
• Introduce benzene-free organic solvents and technologies that convert the carcinogenic chromium into a non-carcinogenic form;
• Ban tobacco use at the workplace; and
• Provide protective clothes for people working in the sun.

The majority of workplace-related deaths currently occur in the developed world, but developing nations represent a new horizon of workplace health epidemics. The WHO's policy recommendations are made to governments in both the developed and the developing world in order to protect workers everywhere.

Labels: asbestos, lung cancer, mesothelioma

Source: CancerMonthly.Com

Research into the treatment of mesothelioma is taking place on many fronts. While the typical treatment regimen is still a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, new avenues of therapy are being researched and many hold great promise for the future. Some of these cutting-edge therapies target the molecular pathways by which the disease grows and spreads itself throughout the body. Therapies based on anti-angiogenesis drugs target the signaling pathways involved with the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein or the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) protein and attempt to disrupt the processes by which tumors develop. Other signaling pathways being studied for the treatment of mesothelioma include the Wnt pathway, which is thought to play an important role in activating mesothelioma stem cells, as well as the P53, pRB, BCL-2 pathways. Along with the development of targeted anti-cancer agents, work in genomics also promises to revolutionize cancer treatment. By looking at how the body works at its most basic level, scientists hope to develop therapies based on the interaction of drug agents with an individual's genetics.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: CancerMonthly.com

Virotherapy is a rapidly-evolving treatment regimen where viruses are engineered to replicate only in certain types of tumor cells and to specifically attack only those cells. The difficulty is designing a virus with the proper molecular composition to target only certain types of cancer cells, such as those involved with mesothelioma, while ignoring normal cells.

Researchers at the Division of Human Gene Therapy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), led by Zeng B. Zhu, MD, have done just this. They have engineered an adenovirus-based agent with a recently identified tumor specific promoter (TSP) called "survivin". The TSP is important because it can restrict the expression of certain genes and viral replication in tumor cells. In this case, the viral agent the team engineered has shown great promise for the treatment of mesothelioma because it only replicates in mesothelioma cells while ignoring normal cells.

While the team was quick to point out that this is only one step in developing new treatments for mesothelioma, it is an important step nonetheless. Besides mesothelioma, virotherapy offers promise for the treatment of other types of cancer and the team at UAB is specifically working on treatments for ovarian cancer and glioma.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: Rosetta Genomics

The NYU Medical Center, one of the world's premier academic medical institutions, has partnered with Rosetta Genomics, a leader in the development of microRNA-based diagnostics and therapeutics, to jointly-develop early detection diagnostic tools for lung cancer and mesothelioma. Dr. Harvey Pass, Professor and Chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery and Thoracic Oncology at NYU Medical Center, describes a test "... that will be able to detect cancer at an ealy stage using a simple blood draw...." The test will use a proprietary protocol developed by Rosetta Genomics to extract microRNAs, which are a recently-discovered form of RNAi that act as protein regulators and have shown promise as biomarkers for a variety of cancers.

Labels: lung cancer, mesothelioma

Source: Billings Gazette

Libby, Montana is the location of what the EPA calls "the worst case of community-wide exposure to a toxic substance in U.S. history." One of Libby's major revenue sources was its vermiculite mine, but in 1990 it was discovered that the mine was contaminated with asbestos and that this contamination had exposed thousands of people to the many dangers of asbestos exposure, such as lung cancer and mesothelioma. There have now been over 192 deaths and 345 other cases of people made ill because of exposure to the asbestos-contaminated mine.

The primary responsibility for care and screening for these victims has been The Center for Asbestos Related Disease, a 2003 spin-off from the hospital in Libby. While the Center's main goal has been the care and screening of more than 1500 patients, the Center is also dedicated to researching new treatments and diagnostic techniques. The Center works in conjunction with other organizations, such as the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation, on a variety of research projects. One of its current projects is studying the actual asbestos-subtype found in Libby, as it differs in significant ways from the most common form of asbestos, chrysotile. Unlike chrysotile, whose fibers are serpentine-shaped and flexible, the type of asbestos found in Libby has hard, needlike fibers.

In 2001 the federal Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry completed a study which found that fully 19 percent of the population in and around Libby had physical signs of health-related abnormalities consistent with asbestos exposure.

Labels: asbestos, lung cancer, mesothelioma

Source: Cancer Monthly

Mesothelioma with conventional treatment has a median survival rate of 9 to 12 months after diagnosis, which is one of the worst survival rates of any cancer. Yet, there are examples in the medical literature of patients who've lived much longer than this after their diagnosis. Doctors and researchers do not understand why some individuals seem to live so much longer than the average, but they are beginning to look at the role of the immune system as a possible answer.

Paul Kraus is among the most famous of these mesothelioma survivors. In 1997 he was diagnosed with mesothelioma and only given months to live. After consulting with a variety of physicians and refusing to accept the very limited prognosis he faced with conventional treatment modalities, he embarked on a personal research project and developed his own treatment regimen which was based on boosting his immune system's response to the malignancy. Now, ten years later, he's a regular speaker at mesothelioma events and has written a highly-regarded book about his journey and his method: Surviving Mesothelioma and Other Cancers: A Patient's Guide.

Like Mr. Kraus, other patients have been diagnosed with mesothelioma and have lived years after the doctors said they would, but these are still minority examples in the literature. As scientists begin to study the effects of immunotherapy on mesothelioma, they are finding the results of some clinical trials quite promising. In one study of immunotherapy used in conjunction with chemotherapy, median survival was reported at 29.2 months, greatly exceeding the average survival rate.

Many questions still remain unanswered, but the promising results of these immunotherapy trials offer hope that more effective mesothelioma treatment options are on the horizon.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute

Scientists from the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, one of the major cancer research centers in the United States, announced significant results in their latest research into the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. Karmanos researches studying the ubiquitin-proteasome proteolytic (UPP) pathway determined that protein ubiquitination and degradation are essential elements in the progression of mesothelioma. 33 of the 241 genes involved in the UPP pathway are differentially expressed among epithelioid and biphasic mesothelioma [two of the three mesothelioma sub-types]. These findings prompted Anil Wali, a Ph.D. and the Karmanos assistant professor who led th study, to conclude that "...if we can develop a therapy to target this pathway, we will be one step closer to halting this disease."

The results of the Karmanos research were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in Los Angeles, CA. Funding for the study was provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

More information on the ubiquitin-proteasome proteolytic (UPP) pathway can be found at the Wikipedia entry for proteasomes.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: BusinessWire

European developer and marketer CISBIO has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved MESOMARK® Assay, the first in-vitro test for managing patients with mesothelioma, for use. The test is now available for monitoring patients who suffer from epithelioid or biphasic mesothelioma. The introduction of a minimally invasive monitoring agent with a greater diagnostic capacity is a key element in the ongoing treatment of mesothelioma, as treatment monitoring has traditionally been costly and quite invasive.

The test has been developed and manufactured by Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc. and is being marketed by CISBIO.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: StarNewsOnline.com

This article profiles Glen Long, a mesothelioma survivor who has responded favorably to his treatment regimen. Mr. Long was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2006 and has completed a series of chemotherapy treatments. His cancer has since stabilized and he notes that he's been able to return to some of this activities.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: ScrippsNews

The Utah Department of Health has concluded that people who lived within two miles of two old vermiculite plants with heavy asbestos contamination in Salt Lake City have a fifty percent greater chance of developing lung cancer than people who live in other parts of the state. While the data didn't conclusively establish a causative relationship between the asbestos contamination and the lung cancer incidents, the high correlation rate has prompted the state to become more concerned about the potential health risks posed by these old plants. Two years ago the state, along with federal agencies, spent more than $7 million in a Superfund cleanup of the two plants.

Utah's Department of Environmental Quality, in partnership with the EPA, is now launching a search for people who have worked at the plant or lived in the surrounding neighborhoods.

The vermiculite plants received their stock from Libby, Montana, whose vermiculite mining industry was destroyed when large-scale asbestos contamination was discovered in its vermiculite ore mine in 1990. There have been more than 200 asbestos-related casualties from the mine itself, and many others have been sickened by the asbestos exposure. The EPA declared Libby, Montana to be the "worst-case of community-wide exposure to a toxic substance in U.S. History."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libby,_Montana)

Labels: asbestos, lung cancer, mesothelioma

Source: eMaxHealth

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is embarking on two long-term studies of mining activities in the northeastern part of the state.

The first study will be a detailed account of the health of mine workers in the region. There have been over 50 diagnoses of mesothelioma among people who worked these mines between the 1930s and the 1980s. This new study follows one completed in 2003 that showed 17 cases of mesothelioma among mine workers. The 2003 study was the first to conclusively show the presence of mesothelioma among Minnesota miners. Since that time, an additional 35 cases of mesothelioma have occurred, prompting the State to begin this second, more comprehensive study. MDH plans to seek federal funds from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, as well as other sources. The study is expected to last three years.

The second study that MDH is pursuing involves documenting the health risks associated with airborne mineral fragments released during the mining of ore. The study has been commissioned to provide data for the development of regulatory controls regarding exposure limits for these airborne mineral fragments.

Labels: asbestos, mesothelioma

Source: PRWeb

Paul Kraus is an inspiration to many victims of mesothelioma. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 1997 and only given months to live. Now, 10 years later, he is still alive and well and still giving speeches on his journey. He has even written a highly-regarded book, Surviving Mesothelioma and Other Cancers: A Patient's Guide, that describes his treatment regimen and his, thus far, successful battle against mesothelioma.

Mr. Kraus recently delivered a teleconference presentation, one of many he does every year, where he spoke with other victims of mesothelioma about regaining hope and the non-conventional treatment choices he credits with his better-than-average health ten years after his diagnosis.

Mr. Kraus's website is www.survivingmesothelioma.com.

Labels: mesothelioma