domingo, 26 de novembro de 2017

The World’s Workers Still Dying From Malignant Mesothelioma

06:06 0

An international study of malignant mesothelioma suggests that deaths from the asbestos cancer have increased in recent years, in spite of advances in diagnostic and treatment tools.
The study included data and estimates on deaths from malignant mesothelioma in 230 countries between 1994 and 2014.
Based on information obtained from the World Health Organization, a team of scientists in Japan, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, the US, and the UK grouped the countries into three categories – those with reliable numbers on malignant mesothelioma deaths, those with less reliable mesothelioma data, and those that do not track mesothelioma deaths.

Mesothelioma Deaths Are Up

The researchers found that, in the 59 countries that keep good data on mesothelioma deaths (including the US), more than 15,000 people died of malignant mesothelioma between 2011 and 2014.
That is the equivalent of just under 10 mesothelioma deaths per million people per year. Based on those rates and the level of asbestos use in the remaining countries, the team extrapolated the number of global deaths from mesothelioma to be 38,400 per year.
“The global numbers and rates of mesothelioma deaths have increased over time,” concludes the study’s primary author, Chimed-Ochir Odgerel with the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in Kitakyushu, Japan. “Our rates are within the range of previously reported values but higher than the most recently reported values.”

PAUL SURVIVED MESOTHELIOMA

Paul Kraus has survived mesothelioma for almost 20 years. He wrote a book on how he did it, and today he is giving them away for free.


CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COPY

Asbestos Remains a Worldwide Health Threat

Asbestos, a naturally-occurring mineral that was once prized for its tensile strength and resistance to heat and corrosion, is the primary cause of both pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma.
Although the link between asbestos exposure and malignant mesothelioma began to come to light as early as the 1950s, manycompanies around the world continued to use asbestos well into the 1980s.
As a result, each year thousands of workers, including an estimated 2,500 in the US, contract malignant mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer of internal membranes for which there is still no cure.
Fifty-five countries have now banned asbestos completely. Others, like the US, subject its use and handling to heavy regulation. Unfortunately, asbestos is still unregulated in most third-world countries where mesothelioma rates continue to rise steadily.

Construction Trades Now at Highest Risk in US

In the past, those who mined and processed asbestos in places like Libby, Montana, and Naval seamen who lived and worked on asbestos-laden ships were at highest risk of eventually developing mesothelioma.
Today, as the asbestos used in older buildings deteriorates, workers in construction trades including electricians, plumbers and those who do renovation or demolition work face a higher risk of asbestos exposure and eventual malignant mesothelioma.
There is no way to prevent mesothelioma in asbestos-exposed workers, but some recent studies have suggested that periodic screening with a tool such as CT may improve the odds of early detection and longer mesothelioma survival.
Source:
Odgerel, CQ, et al, “Estimation of the global burden of mesothelioma deaths from incomplete national mortality data”, September 2, 2017, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epub ahead of print
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Fluid Drainage Brings Symptom Relief for Mesothelioma Patients

06:04 0
The majority of mesothelioma patients polled say they could breathe easier after a procedure to remove excess lung fluid from their chest. The more fluid that was removed, the better they felt.
Those findings come from a new UK study of patient-reported outcome measures among 158 people suffering from malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Collecting Data from Mesothelioma Patients

The data that formed the basis of the study was collected as part of the patients’ routine clinical care for their pleural mesothelioma, a virulent cancer of the lining around the lungs. Evaluation tools were used that included two patient-reported scores on their level of improvement after specific mesothelioma treatments.
“Excluding diagnostic aspiration, the majority of patients (108/126, 85.7%) experienced symptomatic benefit from fluid drainage,” reports study author Ioannis Psallidas, MD, PhD, of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust in BMJ Open Respiratory Research.
On a 100 millimeter visual scale, patients reported a mean improvement in their mesothelioma symptoms equivalent to 42.6 millimeters after lung fluid removal. The researchers determined that there was a correlation between the amount of fluid removed and the level of symptom relief.

Lung Fluid and Mesothelioma Symptoms

The buildup of fluid in the pleural space around the lungs, also known as pleural effusion,  is the cause of some of the most uncomfortable and life-limiting symptoms of advanced pleural mesothelioma.

PAUL SURVIVED MESOTHELIOMA

Paul Kraus has survived mesothelioma for almost 20 years. He wrote a book on how he did it, and today he is giving them away for free.


CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COPY
As fluid builds up, the lungs are compressed, leaving less space for expansion with each breath. Many mesothelioma patients complain of chronic shortness of breath (dyspnea) and chest pain. The inability to take a complete breath can lead to fatigue and dramatically reduce patients’ quality of life.
Pleural effusions can be drained with a needle but, because the procedure often needs to be repeated, some patients are fitted with a port that they can use to do periodic drainage on their own at home.

Considering Patient Feedback

While there are many objective ways to measure mesothelioma outcomes, the UK researchers say soliciting feedback from the patients themselves with the evaluation tool they developed may help clinicians refine and improve mesothelioma care.
“The outcomes defined have the potential to form the basis of a clinically useful tool to appraise the effect, compare the efficient and identify the importance of pleural interventions to the patients,” concludes the study summary.
Source:
Psallida, I, “Assessment of patient-reported outcome measures in pleural interventions”, July 3, 2017, BMJ Open Respiratory Research, eCollection 2017
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New Chemotherapy Booster May Extend Mesothelioma Survival

06:03 0

Cancer researchers say the VEGF-inhibitor nintedanib (Ofev) extended mesothelioma survival by more than five months in patients on standard chemotherapy in a new trial.
That is among the findings of a recently-published Phase II study of nintedanib as an adjunct therapy to pemetrexed (Alimta) and cisplatin for malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Nintedanib Trial Details

Nintedanib is currently used to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and some types of non-small cell lung cancer.
To test its effectiveness in mesothelioma treatment, the LUME-Meso trial, a multi-center trial sponsored by drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim, recruited 87 people with either epithelioid or biphasic pleural mesothelioma. Patients could not have received any chemotherapy previously and were required to have a good performance status, meaning they had few other serious health problems.
Study subjects were randomized to receive the standard combination of mesothelioma chemotherapy drugs with the addition of either 200 mg of nintedanib or a placebo twice a day. Patients could undergo up to six 21-day cycles of the treatment, after which they received nintedanib or the placebo as a monotherapy (by itself) until their mesothelioma began to progress again.

Drug Appears to Slow Mesothelioma Progression

Although it is too early to say that nintedanib definitely extends mesothelioma survival, the preliminary results of the Phase II trial are encouraging, especially for people with the most common type of mesothelioma.

PAUL SURVIVED MESOTHELIOMA

Paul Kraus has survived mesothelioma for almost 20 years. He wrote a book on how he did it, and today he is giving them away for free.


CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COPY
“Benefit was evident in epithelioid histology, with a median overall survival gain of 5.4 months and median progression free survival gain of 4 months,” reports Federica Grosso, the Italian researcher whose name appears first on the report in the latest issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
While 6.8% of patients had to discontinue the use of nintedanib due to side effects, that was actually less than half of the number of patients who had the same reaction to the placebo drug.

VEGF Inhibition and Mesothelioma Treatment

VEGF is a protein which stimulates the formation of new blood vessels which are needed to support the growth of mesothelioma tumors. Emerging evidence also suggests that VEGF may suppress the immune system’s response to malignant mesothelioma and other cancers.
Bevacizumab (Avastin), another VEGF inhibitor, made headlines in 2016 when the French-led MAPS study found that adding it to standard chemotherapy extended mesothelioma survival by 23 percent.
The nintedanib trial will now move into the Phase III confirmation part of the study, which will eventually include a total of 450 pleural mesothelioma patients.
Source:
Grosso, F, et al, “Nintedanib Plus Pemetrexed/Cisplatin in Patients With Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: Phase II Results From the Randomized, Placebo-Controlled LUME-Meso Trial”, September 11, 2017, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Epub ahead of print
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Curcumin Shrinks Aggressive Mesothelioma umors in New Study

06:02 0


The bright yellow chemical that gives turmeric its spicy kick has scored yet another win as a possible treatment for malignant mesothelioma. This time, scientists used it on lab rats to successfully shrink one of the most aggressive types of mesothelioma tumors.
The plant polyphenol curcumin has been the subject of numerous malignant mesothelioma studies in recent years, in part because of its powerful anti-inflammatory properties.

Curcumin as a Mesothelioma Treatment

The latest study of cucumin in malignant mesothelioma treatment was conducted by French scientists at several different research centers. The team used cells taken from rats that had been induced to develop one of the deadliest and most aggressive subtypes of asbestos cancer called sarcomatoid mesothelioma.
The rats began to develop sarcomatoid mesothelioma tumors in their abdomens within weeks of being injected with asbestos. The French scientists tested curcumin on cells from these tumors to determine the ideal killing dose.

Testing Spice Derivative on Mesothelioma Tumors

The team then used the sarcomatoid mesothelioma rats to test the treatment in vivo, in living animals. Compared with an epigenetic drug called SAHA, curcumin injected directly into the peritoneal cavities of sick rats was more effective and started to destroy their tumors in less two weeks.
“The treatment of tumor-bearing rats with 1.5 mg/kg curcumin on days 7, 9, 11 and 14 after tumor challenge dramatically reduced the mean total tumor mass at day 16,” reports Dr. Daniel L. Pouliquen, lead author on the report in Oncotarget.
Although SAHA also produced necrosis (tissue death) in the mesothelioma tumors, the damage to the tumors was not nearly as extensive and scientists still found pockets of resistant mesothelioma cells throughout the abdomens of the rats.

Fewer Residual Mesothelioma Tumors

Small residual mesothelioma tumors were also left behind after curcumin treatment, but scientists found that there were fewer of them and they tended to be surrounded by by cancer-killing T cells.
The tumors themselves were also different, expressing less of the chemicals associated with growth and aggression than the tumors left behind after SAHA treatment.
“These data open up interesting new prospects for the therapy of sarcomatoid mesothelioma with curcumin and its derivatives,” concludes Dr. Pouliquen.

Previous Curcumin Research

Earlier this year, scientists in the Department of Experimental Medicine at the University of Rome conducted a similar experiment and that found that intraperitoneal curcumin extended survival in mice with mesothelioma.
In 2015, mesothelioma researchers with Flinders University in Australia determined that curcumin had the ability to keep mesothelioma tumors from giving rise to their own new blood vessels. That study suggested that curcumin could become a supplemental treatment for certain mesothelioma patients.
Malignant mesothelioma can be a deadly consequence of asbestos exposure. Although this membrane cancer most often develops on the lining around the lungs, the peritoneal form, which grows on the abdominal wall, makes up about a fifth of cases in the US every year.
The world’s longest-living mesothelioma survivor, Paul Kraus, author of Surviving Mesothelioma and Other Cancers, was originally diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma.
Source:
Pouliquen, DL, “Evaluation of intracavitary administration of curcumin for the treatment of sarcomatoid mesothelioma”, Oncotarget, August 22, 2017, eCollection
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Inflammation Marker May Predict Mesothelioma Prognosis

06:00 0


The ratio of neutrophils to lymphocytes – a way of measuring inflammation in the body of people with malignant pleural mesothelioma – may help doctors predict how well they will respond to treatment.
That is the conclusion of mesothelioma researchers at China’s Sichuan University. In a new article in the journal Oncotarget, the team observed that NLR has been associated with survival in other types of cancer but it’s value as a prognostic indicator in pleural mesothelioma is still unclear.

Neutrophils and Lymphocytes in Mesothelioma

Neutrophils are the most abundant type of white blood cells and a key part of the immune system. Lymphocytes are the primary type of of white blood cells found in lymph. They include natural killer cells, T cells and B cells.
NLR is used in many types of diseases as a marker of inflammation. It is calculated by dividing the number of neutrophils in a blood sample by the number of lymphocytes. In several other types of cancer and in cardiovascular disease, a higher NLR has been associated with a worse prognosis.

Measuring Mesothelioma Prognosis

To determine the value of NLR in managing patients with malignant mesothelioma, researchers analyzed a total of 11 studies including 1533 malignant pleural mesothelioma patients. As predicted, the higher the NLR, the worse patients did.
A higher NLR was also found to be linked to which mesothelioma subtype a person had, but not to their gender, age or performance (overall health) score.

PAUL SURVIVED MESOTHELIOMA

Paul Kraus has survived mesothelioma for almost 20 years. He wrote a book on how he did it, and today he is giving them away for free.


CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COPY
“These findings indicate the elevated NLR score could be a potential prognostication factor for malignant pleural mesothelioma patients and might be associated with histology as an efficient clinical index to stratify patients,” writes  lead researcher Nan Chin of the West China School of Medicine.

Value of Prognostic Indicators

Immune system cells have been at the top of the list for mesothelioma prognostic indicators for some time. Just last month, an article in the British Journal of Cancer found  a close association between certain type of neutrophils and lymphocytes and mesothelioma survival
Understanding the key immunological drivers behind malignant mesothelioma is vital to immunotherapy, one of the most promising new approaches to treating mesothelioma.
As many as 2500 Americans are diagnosed with either pleural or peritoneal mesothelioma every year. There is currently no cure and few effective treatment options.
Source:
Chin, N, et al, “Prognostic Significance of Neutrophils to Lymphocytes Ratio in Patients with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: A Meta-Analysis”, February 2017, Oncotarget
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Radical Surgery Alone Unlikely to Prolong Mesothelioma Survival

05:59 0


Extrapleural pneumonectomy, the most radical – and risky – type of surgery for malignant pleural mesothelioma, is more likely to lead to long term survival when paired with strategic follow-up treatments.
That is the conclusion of researchers at Japan’s Kyushu University who conducted a retrospective study of 10 mesothelioma patients who underwent EPP at their institution between 2001 to 2010.

EPP Surgery and Mesothelioma Outcomes

EPP surgery is one of two primary types of surgery for pleural mesothelioma. It differs from pleurectomy with decortication (PD) because, in addition to the pleura and all or part of the diaphragm, it involves the removal of a lung.
Surgeons around the world are divided over the merits of EPP because it is such a major surgery and carries significant risk. However, several studies have indicated that, among carefully-chosen patients in experienced cancer centers, EPP can improves the odds of surviving mesothelioma.

Multi-Modality Mesothelioma Treatment – Before and After Recurrence

Like PD and nearly all other types of pleural mesothelioma treatments, EPP is used as part of a multi-modality approach that may also include chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or newer treatments like immunotherapy.
But there is relatively little data to suggest how EPP patients should be treated after their mesothelioma recurs, as it did in 80 percent of the patients in the new Japanese study.
Four of the patients experienced their first mesothelioma recurrence after EPP on the same side of their chest as the original tumor. These patients all underwent some kind of local (at the treatment site) treatment, including either additional surgery or radiotherapy. Some also received systemic chemotherapy.
Two patients developed new mesothelioma tumors in the peritoneal space around the lining of the abdomen while two others had their first recurrence on their remaining lung. These two groups received platinum-based systemic chemotherapy.
Patients survived a median of 17.8 months after their first recurrence and the 2-year survival rate was 23.4 percent.

Mesothelioma Recurrence Patterns and Treatment

Based on the recurrence patterns they saw, the Japanese research team concluded that what they called “direct tumor extension”, a malignant mesothelioma tumor that arises as an extension of the original tumor in roughly the same area, may be a primary mechanism for mesothelioma recurrence.
They also concluded that follow-up treatment makes a major difference in survival.
“Aggressive treatment for recurrent malignant pleural mesothelioma after EPP, including locoregional control and/or systemic chemotherapy, was important for achieving long-term survival,” writes lead researcher Tatsuro Okamoto. The report appears in the journal Thoracic Cancer.
Source:
Okamoto, T, et al, “Treatment for recurrence after extrapleural pneumonectomy for malignant pleural mesothelioma: A single institution experience”, Thoracic Cancer
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