Preliminary results from a Phase 1 study offer evidence that a combination of pegylated arginine deiminase plus pemetrexed and cisplatin chemotherapy can disrupt mesothelioma cell growth. The results were announced in November by the Polaris Group, a biopharmaceutical company engaged in research and development of protein drugs to treat mesothelioma and other debilitating diseases. The
Monthly Archives: November 2015
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved an anti-PD-1 therapy that may also prove helpful to mesothelioma patients. The newly approved therapeutic agent is pembrolizumab. It’s an immunotherapy agent designed to block interaction between PD-1 and its two ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2. By creating this blocking action, it helps the immune system recognize
Researchers in Scotland are developing a mesothelioma vaccine designed to kill tumors after the disease begins. The vaccine infects mesothelioma cells with the virus. What is intriguing is that the virus is programmed to infect mesothelioma cells only. It has no interest in attacking cells. Details of the virus were shared by the researchers through
If you’re receiving mesothelioma chemotherapy, you may have noticed one of its side effects is a nasty rash. That happens because of the pemetrexed that’s used in first-line mesothelioma chemotherapy. But there may be a simple way to very effectively counteract that rash. Researchers in Japan say giving mesothelioma patients supplementary corticosteroids is all it
Drugs that disrupt the workings of the enzyme EZH2 could prove effective in stopping the growth of mesothelioma cells in as many as 60 percent of mesothelioma patients. Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York say the drugs are now in various stages of development, but for uses other than the treatment
The 63,000 individuals exposed to asbestos and other toxic materials that blanketed Lower Manhattan when the World Trade Center towers fell in 2001 stand to be benefit from a bill now before Congress. The bill aims to provide permanent medical monitoring and support services for the exposure victims. Many of them are at risk of
Recently we shared with you about how scientists are developing nanobots. These are molecule-sized machines that one day may be used to help you battle mesothelioma. The most probable use of nanobots will be to deliver mesothelioma chemotherapy drugs directly to the tumor and nowhere else. In other words, nanobots will make sure the chemo
The burning question that leaps off your tongue when your doctor recommends that you undergo extrapleural pneumonectomy is “How much more time will this mesothelioma surgery give me?” It’s understandable why that would be your first question. Mesothelioma survival is the bottom line for you. It’s why you’d agree to have that surgery in the
