Mesothelioma Clinical Trials
A mesothelioma diagnosis is a serious one, but it is not one without hope. There are a variety of treatments available, and a number of ongoing clinical trails.
Trial Status
We do our best to keep the current status (closed, currently recruiting, upcoming) of each clinical trial up-to-date. Several clinical trials are listed at ClinicalTrials.gov as "currently recruiting" despite the estimated completion date having been long past. The contact for a particular clinical trial is your best bet to discover if a particular clinical trial is still open and recruiting.
Glossary
To help you as you read through these clinical trials, we have glossary of terms and their definitions. Words underlined with a dashed line are part of the glossary; to see their definition, simply click on the word.
Clinical Trials
Purpose: This pilot phase 0 trial studies accelerated hypofractionated radiation therapy immediately before surgery in treating patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (cancer in the thin layer of tissue that covers the lungs and lines the interior wall of the chest cavity). Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill tumor cells and shrink tumors. Hypofractionated radiation therapy is a type of radiation therapy in which the total prescribed dose of radiation is divided into fewer but larger doses as compared to conventional radiation therapy. Giving accelerated hypofractionated radiation therapy immediately before surgery may improve survival, and may also reduce side effects experienced by patients with pleural mesothelioma.
Purpose: This is a single institution, single-arm, window of opportunity pilot trial of pembrolizumab in patients with resectable malignant pleural mesothelioma. All patients will undergo a pretreatment PET/CT scan for clinical staging and a VATS procedure to acquire pretreatment tissue. Three cycles of pembrolizumab will then be administered (200 mg IV every 21 days). A PET/CT scan will then be repeated to assess response to pembrolizumab and then surgical resection will be performed via an extended/pleurectomy decortication at least 4 weeks after the third dose of pembrolizumab. Standard adjuvant chemotherapy consisting of cisplatin and pemetrexed for 4 cycles (every 21 days) will be given starting about 6-8 weeks following surgery, after a new baseline CT scan is obtained. Restaging CT scans will be obtained to assess response after every two cycles of chemotherapy. After the completion of standard chemotherapy, optional adjuvant treatment with pembrolizumab will be given to eligible patients for 1 year post-surgery.
Purpose:The study is a prospective, single arm, non-randomized, open label phase II trial, designed to study the safety and efficacy of a medical device, the NovoTTF-100L concomitant with Pemetrexed and cisplatin or carboplatin in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma patients. The device is an experimental, portable, battery operated device for chronic administration of alternating electric fields (termed TTFields or TTF) to the region of the malignant tumor, by means of surface, insulated electrode arrays.
PurposeThis is a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, parallel-group study, using a placebo control or amatuximab 5 mg/kg, administered weekly, designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of amatuximab in combination with pemetrexed and cisplatin in subjects with unresectable Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma who have not received prior systemic therapy
Purpose: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive tumour with poor prognosis (median survival <13 months), and high resistance to chemotherapy. Extended pleurectomy/decortication (eP/D) is a debulking surgery of MPM but cannot be considered as a curative treatment. Therefore it has been suggested that eP/D may be of interest if combined with intra-operative treatment and adjuvant therapies.
Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is an innovative treatment based on the rationale that tumour cells, if previously treated with photosensitizing drugs (Photofrin), will die when exposed to light at a particular wavelength. Interestingly PDT might also stimulate anti-tumour immune response through the release of tumour antigens and induced inflammation.
PDT was tested in phase I-II trials for MPM in combination with EPP or eP/D, and chemotherapy. US studies from J Friedberg et al found very promising survival results in MPM when combining eP/D, but not EPP, intra-operative PDT and chemotherapy (cisplatin-pemetrexed), with a median overall survival of 31.7 months.
However, the definitive value of intra-pleural PDT combined to eP/D in the treatment of MPM still need to be validated. The same multimodal treatment has been established in Lille, the French national expert centre for MPM, with the help of our american colleagues. Therefore, this phase II trial proposes to patients to benefit from the combination of eP/D, intra-operative PDT then chemotherapy by cisplatin-pemetrexed and prophylactic radiotherapy.
Primary endpoint is the feasibility for the patients to have the full multimodal treatment of MPM including intrapleural PDT without unacceptable or unexpected grade III-IV toxicities. Secondary endpoints are PFS, OS, ORR, and quality of life. If the feasibility of such treatment would be confirmed in France, a multicentric, randomized trial comparing this experimental treatment vs control arm (same multimodal treatment without PDT) is planned.
Purpose:Prospective exploratory study specifically investigating the role of 11C-Methionine PET/CT imaging in patients affected by Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM) and candidate to pleurodesis.
Purpose:This phase II trial studies how well pembrolizumab works in treating patients with malignant mesothelioma, a cancer of the linings around the lungs (pleura) or abdomen (peritoneum). Monoclonal antibodies, such as pembrolizumab, work by blocking a protein called programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) which may stimulate an immune response and kill tumor cells.
Purpose:Malignant mesothelioma is an aggressive pleural disease, related to asbestos exposure. At present, cytotoxic chemotherapy is the only evidence based treatment for the disease, but efficacy is limited. The investigators have shown both in a murine model, as for the first time in patients, that dendritic cell-based immunotherapy induces tumor specific T-cell responses. However the quality and quantity of the autologous tumor cell lysate to load the dendritic cells was a major impediment for these trials. The investigators have now developed a clinical grade allogeneic tumor cell lysate which can be used to load dendritic cells of patients.
Purpose:Malignant mesothelioma is a rare neoplasm that arises most commonly from the mesothelial surfaces of the pleural cavity, occasionally from the peritoneal surface, and rarely from the tunica vaginalis or pericardium. It has an extremely poor prognosis with a median survival of 4 to 13 months for untreated patients 1 and 6 to 18 months for treated patients, regardless of the therapeutic approach.
The anticancer activity of Oshadi D and Oshadi R treatment was tested in preclinical studies and in phase I clinical study. Four metastatic mesothelioma patients are treated for 5 to 12 months. The Oshadi D and Oshadi R combination treatment was generally well-tolerated with no dose-limiting toxicities observed.
Reduced Immunogenicity Mesothelin-Targeted Immunotoxin LMB-100 in People With Malignant Mesothelioma
Purpose:LMB-100 is a man-made protein. It is attracted to the mesothelin protein. This is found in many tumors, including mesothelioma. But it is found in only a very small number of normal tissues. After binding to mesothelin on tumors, LMB-100 attacks and kills cancer cells. Researchers want to test LMB-100 in people with advanced mesothelioma. The objective is o find a safe dose and anti-tumor activity of LMB-100 for people with advanced mesothelioma.
