There’s a chance you — like many mesothelioma patients — are fighting this cancer with the equivalent of an arm tied behind your back, say researchers. The thing that’s hamstringing you is inadequate use of chemotherapy, they claim in a study published this month. The researchers — from Sydney, Australia — believe that as many as 65 percent of
Monthly Archives: November 2014
A new study offers some of the strongest evidence yet to show that the use of talcum powder contaminated by asbestos is causing a rise in the number of women developing mesothelioma. Mesothelioma afflicts men overwhelmingly more often than it does women. But, increasingly, mesothelioma is turning up in women, and medical scientists have been
Let’s say your mesothelioma is very far advanced. Many would suggest you consider entering hospice care. But a new study hints you might survive mesothelioma longer if you stick with hospital treatment. Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that the intensity of care received by cancer patients is greater in the hospital
The mesothelioma diagnosis you received from your doctor probably right then and there erased all doubt as to whether the cancer was present inside you. However, there was still a margin for error. For quite some time now, researchers have been quietly arguing about the best way to eliminate that margin for error. The dispute
The mesothelioma growing on the lining of your lungs could be vulnerable to a devastating attack through a pathway provided by an obscure cellular protein. Scientists raised this possibility just over a month ago at the annual meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Madrid, Spain. The pathway exists because mesothelioma cells in
Say you want to launch a gene attack against mesothelioma tumors. If you can choose between having weaponized cells infused into your body by IV drip or plastered directly onto the tumor, pick the latter. Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City found that direct administration of chimeric antigen receptor cells
The possibility that you might be cured of mesothelioma by an injection of micro-robots is the stuff of science fiction. Or perhaps it isn’t. The 2014 Johnny Depp movie “Transcendence” had a scene where people with cancer and other diseases were cured after Depp’s character injected them with micro-robots. An armada of the tiny machines
Researchers recently threw cold water on the idea that a gene present in mesothelioma patients might make a good target for treatment by using lab-modified tyrosine kinases inhibitors. It has been thought — and hoped — that the gene FGFR1 might be a suitable place to launch a molecular attack once mesothelioma cells start massing. FGFR1
