New Study
MRI scans could be better than CT scans for diagnosing and monitoring disease response in pleural mesothelioma patients. An Italian study is looking at the two imaging techniques to compare the effectiveness of each one and is publishing results in the online medical journal Cancers. Computed tomography scans (CT) are currently the most popular way…
Combining the drug ramucirumab with the chemotherapy drug gemcitabine is showing to be a successful second line treatment for pleural mesothelioma. Ramucirumab is a type of immunotherapy drug called a monoclonal antibody, which targets and restricts proteins that stimulate blood vessel growth in tumors. The Lancet Oncology published the results of the Italian study involving…
It could take time for mesothelioma patients to have better lung function after pleural mesothelioma surgery since some patients have better lung function a year after surgery compared to the days and weeks after the operation. Researchers in Japan published their findings in Integrative Cancer Therapies. There were 24 male patients with pleural mesothelioma tested…
Two immunotherapy drugs, tremelimumab and durvalumab, are showing to be a successful second line treatment for pleural mesothelioma when combined. This could mean that more treatments will be approved for the treatment of mesothelioma. The results of this phase II clinical trial were published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine from the Department of Oncology at…
There are some good results coming from a German study looking at Pleurectomy and Decortication surgery (P/D) being combined with HITHOC. Pleurectomy surgery is surgery that removes mesothelioma tumors but leaves the lung intact while HITHOC is a method of adding heated chemotherapy to the pleural area, sparing the rest of the body. When used…
A study at the Duke University Medical Center has found that radiation does not extend survival in pleural mesothelioma patients. A dual registry analysis was performed to determine the effectiveness of aggressive surgery and radiation. Adjuvant radiation is recommended as a treatment by many cancer centers including the U.S. National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the…
Tumor Treating Fields were approved for treating mesothelioma, and while they are effective, researchers want to make them more effective for the cancer. A researcher at the Humanitas University in Milan is studying different drug combinations to use with Tumor Treating Fields. The goal is to find a drug that has a synergistic effect with…
Researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center are experimenting with a combination of CAR-T cell therapy and Keytruda, a PD-1 blocker for the treatment of pleural mesothelioma. This is the first time that these two therapies have been combined. The results were recently published in Cancer Discovery. Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer of the…
Research could help create better and safer immunotherapy treatments for mesothelioma. Immunotherapy is a fast growing and exciting way to treat cancer because it uses the body’s own immune system to treat cancer instead of harmful drugs like chemotherapy. Immunotherapy can be way more effective than typical treatments, but it can also have very bad…
A new cancer vaccine was found to be effective in mesothelioma patients alongside Opdivo in a new study. It was studied in people whose cancer no longer responded to standard chemotherapy. The phase I clinical trial took place at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and it involved the galinpepimut-S vaccine, or GPS. Data early…
