A new second line treatment has been developed for pleural mesothelioma. The treatment was created at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. Research was done as a single-arm, open-label clinical trial combining pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and lenvatinib. The results were presented at the IASCL 2022 World Conference on Lung Cancer in[…]
Novel Treatments & Drugs
A New Blood Test That Can Diagnose Mesothelioma Has Been Developed
A blood test could make diagnosing mesothelioma faster, leading to doctors catching the disease earlier in patients. Mesothelioma is a hard-to-treat cancer mainly caused by asbestos. Once diagnosed, not much can be done because it has usually spread and progressed to a point where treatments like surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation[…]
Researchers Possibly Found a MicroRNA Biomarker to Diagnose Mesothelioma
Italian researchers have potentially found a new biomarker for mesothelioma. The biomarker is a microRNA signature. This would allow doctors to determine if someone’s cancer is mesothelioma or another type of cancer quickly. Mesothelioma is a notoriously hard to treat cancer and early diagnosis is one of the keys to[…]
An Inhalable Gene Therapy is Being Tested for Mesothelioma
An inhalable gene therapy could potentially be approved for use in mesothelioma patients. Researchers in Japan have created two different tumor suppressing drugs that work by targeting genetic mutations. The drugs were created for non-small cell cancer and pleural mesothelioma. They are both doing well in the laboratory. The drugs[…]
Drug Repurposing for Mesothelioma
Research at Temple University is looking at four different drug compounds, all used for noncancerous conditions, for treating mesothelioma. The research is part of a drug repurposing project, which tests drugs not typically used for illnesses like cancer to see if they work on the disease. Drug repurposing has become[…]
SMARTEST Trial Hopes to Improve Survival Times for Mesothelioma
Researchers are performing a clinical trial hoping that they can make pleural mesothelioma a more manageable, and even survivable, disease. The clinical trial is being done at Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto. The trial is known as SMARTEST, which stands for Surgery for Mesothelioma After Radiation Therapy using Exquisite[…]
Galinpepimut-S Cancer Vaccine in Combination with Opdivo
Promising results from a study on pleural mesothelioma were recently released. The study found when patients were treated with a new combination treatment, patients lived longer and had a better quality of life. The phase I clinical trial utilized a targeted cancer vaccine known as galinpepimut-S (GPS) and the immunotherapy[…]
Vudalimab for the Treatment of Mesothelioma
The MD Anderson Cancer Center is conducting a study on an immunotherapy drug that is specifically for rare, advanced tumors. Pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma are both included in the study. The clinical trial is looking for effectiveness and safety of vudalimab. The treatment, also known as XmAb20717, was created by[…]
Proton Beam Radiation Therapy Use Increases for Mesothelioma and Lung Cancer
Proton beam radiation therapy is growing in popularity for treating mesothelioma and lung cancer. A study in JAMA Oncology looked at the use of this radiation for treating different types of cancer. There were almost 6 million patients in the study and data shows that proton radiation use tripled from[…]
Monoclonal Antibody Treatment was Found Not to be Effective on Pleural Mesothelioma
A phase II clinical trial comparing anetumab ravtansine to the chemotherapy drug vinorelbine did not have promising results for treating mesothelioma like researchers had hoped. Anetumab ravtansine is an immunotherapy drug that is a monoclonal antibody, which is an engineered antibody that can be used to fight cancer. Researchers found[…]
