Asbestos & Mesothelioma Studies
Immunotherapy before aggressive surgery shows great promise for pleural mesothelioma. The combination has shown that it can improve survival for a group of patients with pleural mesothelioma in a phase II study at Baylor College of Medicine. The treatment uses two immune checkpoint inhibitors, durvalumab and tremelimumab. The two drugs have shown that they can…
It is best to treat peritoneal mesothelioma as soon as possible. Waiting to receive treatment could prevent a patient from living longer than possible. Information from a study looking at treatment start times was published in the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery in November. Researchers observed patients who either received treatment quickly, had a delay in…
Mesothelioma diagnoses have almost doubled in the last 30 years, highlighting the need for better care and more ways to regulate and reduce asbestos exposure. There were around 35,000 people diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2019, while in 1990 there were around 19,000 people diagnosed. This information was released by the Clinical Research Center at Shandong…
The most aggressive surgery for mesothelioma could be more beneficial for patients with the disease. The more aggressive surgery is called an extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), which involves removing the lung. The other surgery, pleurectomy and decortication (P/D), spares the lung and only removes the lining of the lung and visible tumors. A study from Italy…
When mesothelioma patients are treated at mesothelioma specialty centers, they experience better care and survive longer. Kaiser Permanente Northern California Health System compared its performance before and after it transitioned into a specialty care center for mesothelioma. The doctors found a dramatic improvement in patients after the transition. Results were published in the Journal for…
A new immunotherapy treatment is showing promising results against mesothelioma. The therapy consists of a combination of two drugs: one drug that reprograms macrophages and the other is the chemotherapy cisplatin. Mesothelioma is a cancer that does not respond well to treatment. The best option for patients is a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation,…
A new tool to determine levels of asbestos exposure has been developed. The tool, created by Italian researchers, is known as a Retrospective Exposure Assessment (REA). The tool uses a microscope to determine how much asbestos is in lung tissue. The study wants to compare the actual level of asbestos in lung tissue to levels…
Researchers have found a treatment that can eradicate advanced stage mesothelioma tumors within a few days. The research is being done at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine. The treatment utilizes implants known as “drug factories” and a checkpoint inhibitor drug. Mesothelioma is a tough to treat cancer of the mesothelium, which is a…
A new second line treatment has been developed for pleural mesothelioma. The treatment was created at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. Research was done as a single-arm, open-label clinical trial combining pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and lenvatinib. The results were presented at the IASCL 2022 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria. The two drugs…
A blood test could make diagnosing mesothelioma faster, leading to doctors catching the disease earlier in patients. Mesothelioma is a hard-to-treat cancer mainly caused by asbestos. Once diagnosed, not much can be done because it has usually spread and progressed to a point where treatments like surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation are not as helpful. It…
