Mesothelioma Cancer Resources Blog

Source: Medical News Today The United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recently issued guidelines for the use and administration of Alimta therapy for UK residents with mesothelioma. NICE is the independent organization responsible for providing guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health …

Source: Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation The Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation has recently announced that research into mesothelioma is now available for federal funding. When President Bush signed the latest Defense Appropriations bill in mid-November, $50 million was appropriated for the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program, which makes money available for medical …

Source: Swedish Experience with Peritonectomy and HIPEC. HIPEC in Peritoneal Carcinomatosis. (Ann Surg Oncol. 2007 Dec 5) Peritoneal Carcinomatosis refers to the extensive spread of malignant tissue throughout the abdomen (the peritoneum). It is not an individual form of cancer, but is a term used to describe widespread abdominal metastases from other forms of the …

Source: CNNMoney.Com Strativa Pharmaceuticals and Alfacell Corporation have announced that Strativa has acquired the commercialization rights for Alfacell’s mesothelioma drug Onconase. Strativa paid an initial charge of $5 million for the exclusive right to market Onconase in the United States and its territories and will pay up to $30 million for it if FDA approval …

Source: Armato III SG, et al., Current state and future directions of pleural mesothelioma imaging, Lung Cancer (2007), doi:10.1016/j.lungcan.2007.09.027 Imaging is one of the most important aspects of cancer diagnostics. It allows the physician team to look at—and respond to—a number of different aspects of a person’s disease, including tumor extent, invasion of distant body …

Source: Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration is useful for nodal staging in patients with pleural mesothelioma (Diagn Cytopathol. 2008 Jan;36(1):32-7) Effective surgical management of mesothelioma requires the identification of the extent of actual tumor mass, as well as the identification of the malignant status of a patient’s lymph nodes. The former is important so the …

Source: Utility of WT-1, p63, MOC31, Mesothelin, and Cytokeratin (K903 and CK5/6) Immunostains in Differentiating Adenocarcinoma, Squamous Cell Carcinoma, and (Diagn Cytopathol. 2008 Jan;36(1):20-5) The first step in a diagnosis of cancer is the definitive conclusion of the presence of malignant tissue. However, this tissue may not identify the particular form of cancer at work, …

Source: Ribak, J., Ribak, G., Human health effects associated with the commercial use of grunerite …, Regul.Toxicol. Pharmacol. (2007), doi:10.1016/j.yrtph.2007.10.002 Asbestos does not refer to a single type of mineral, but to a family of six individual minerals that share common structural properties. The most common form of asbestos used in commerce was chrysotile. It …

Source: Berndt, M.E., Brice, W.C., The origins of public concern with taconite and human health: …, Regul. Toxicol. Pharmacol. (2008), doi:10.1016/j.yrtph.2007.09.019 In the 1960s, Reserve Mining was one of the largest mining companies in the United States, responsible for 11% of the total US iron production and almost 25% of taconite pellet production in the …

Source: JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2007 99(23):1750-1752; doi:10.1093/jnci/djm257 In the United States, the chemotherapy standard of care for pleural mesothelioma is combination therapy using pemetrexed, marketed as Alimta® by Eli Lilly, and cisplatin. The USFDA approved this treatment—the only one officially approved for mesothelioma in the U.S.—in 2004 due to the successful …