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Monday, February 16, 2009
Source: NIH News
The development of targeted anti-cancer medications is one of the most important areas of contemporary cancer research. Physicians hope creating agents that are able to select specific cells types over others will lead to treatments that are both more effective and that exhibit less severe side effects. This is especially important for the treatment of mesothelioma, as it remains one of the most difficult of all forms of cancer to treat effectively.
The difficulty for these therapies has always been developing an agent that can effectively differentiate normal from malignant cells. A number of articles investigating a variety of agents and targets have been proposed, but most of these studies have not yet led to the creation of such an agent. However, the results of a recent pre-clinical study conducted by researchers from the National Cancer Institute and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have shown great potential for the creation of such agent.
The treatment involves genetically modifying copies of the body’s T-cells, known as the body’s “killer cells,” to target cells associated with high levels of mesothelin expression. Mesothelin is a protein that is expressed mainly by the various tissues that make up the body’s mesothelium, but it is also highly expressed in certain forms of cancer, such as pleural mesothelioma, peritoneal mesothelioma and the non-small-cell lung cancers. The NCI/UPenn researchers were able to modify T-cells to bind with these mesothelin-expressing cell types and to shrink the tumors associated with them. The study reports that mice bred to develop mesothelioma were injected with the treatment and most saw excellent results from the treatment.
The researchers note that the promising results of their study have led them to plan for human clinical trials investing this agent for the treatment of mesothelioma, and for other cancers as well.
Labels: mesothelioma, pleuralmesothelioma, treatments
posted by Joseph DiCastro at 10:46 AM
