Novel Treatments & Drugs

High HITHOC Dosage for Pleural Mesothelioma Improves Survival

High doses of hyperthermic intrathoracic chemotherapy (HITHOC) help pleural mesothelioma patients. A recent study found that when HITHOC is administered at a high dose, survival rates improve and periods of being disease free increase. HITHOC is the use of chemotherapy during surgery and is an experimental treatment for different types[…]

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Platelet Count Can Potentially Influence Mesothelioma Survival

Mesothelioma is a hard-to-treat cancer. Usually chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy are used, but they do not do enough to save people’s lives. Scientists may have figured out why this is the case and could potentially have found the main causes that affect survival. These include stage of the tumor,[…]

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A Cancer Vaccine Could Potentially Help Mesothelioma Patients

Researchers are looking at a vaccine to maintain patient health after cancer treatment, which could be effective for mesothelioma in the future.  The vaccine is specifically made for each patient based on the individual’s biology. The trial is currently being tested on head and neck cancer. It does not usually[…]

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Researchers are Targeting Fibrosis to Improve Mesothelioma Care

Researchers have found that targeting lung fibrosis can help people with mesothelioma. People with mesothelioma usually suffer from fibrosis, which is the stiffening of tissue surrounding tumors. Certain drugs to treat mesothelioma are not very effective because the fibrosis prevents the drugs from penetrating the tumor. It also prevents the[…]

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OT-101 Useful for COVID-19 and Cancers Like Mesothelioma

Researchers are looking at a new treatment for mesothelioma. It is a multimodal treatment (multiple treatments combined) consisting of the immunotherapy drug Keytruda and a new drug called OT-101. OT-101 is an antisense drug, which is a drug that blocks molecules that make certain proteins. The drug is also effective[…]

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A Gene Therapy Could Improve Survival for Mesothelioma

Results from a new study involving a genetic therapy for pleural mesothelioma have been submitted at the University of Leicester. Researchers at the United Kingdom university designed a treatment to match specific genetic profiles to individual patients. There are promising results from the study, which had patients who received first[…]

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Tremelimumab and Durvalumab Combination Can Improve Mesothelioma Survival

Studies show that durvalumab and tremelimumab work very well together while treating mesothelioma. A phase I clinical trial was performed at the Baylor College of Medicine in conjunction with Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center. Durvalumab is an immunotherapy drug known as a PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor. It works by blocking the[…]

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A Virus that Affects Goats Could Help Treat Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma, a cancer of the membrane that surrounds the lungs, abdomen, heart, and testicles is a very aggressive cancer. It spreads very quickly and when the tumors grow big enough, they crowd out organs and make it hard for people to breath. Mesothelioma sufferers can experience coughing, chest pain, and[…]

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Epigenetics Used to Improve Immunotherapy for Mesothelioma

Researchers are looking into changing mesothelioma cells to make them more susceptible to immunotherapy. Mesothelioma is a hard cancer to treat, so new approaches need to be developed to try to lengthen and improve mesothelioma patients’ lives. Immunotherapy can work well for some, but for others it does very little,[…]

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LMB-100 and Ipilumab Combination Being Tested for Pleural and Peritoneal Mesothelioma

The National Cancer Institute just started a study to see if it could make immunotherapy more potent for treating mesothelioma. The study combines a manmade protein that kills cancer cells called LMB-100 and an immunotherapy drug called ipilumab. The problem with current immunotherapy treatments is they do not work well[…]

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