Category: Chemotherapy

Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a unique, rare asbestos-related pulmonary cancer that is highly aggressive and is resistant to many standard cancer treatments.  It can be treated with varying degrees of success, however, through the use of surgical procedures, chemotherapy and radiation.  The current chemotherapy standard of care for the treatment of pleural mesothelioma is combination …

Malignant pleural mesothelioma patients may soon have another treatment option if the makers of Teysuno, a gastric cancer drug, can prove the effectiveness of the drug in fighting the deadly form of lung cancer.  Mesothelioma is a rare, aggressive respiratory cancer caused by exposure to airborne asbestos fibers and is resistant to many standard cancer …

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), a worldwide biopharmaceutical company and manufacturer of many cancer drugs, has agreed to pay $19 million to patients and third-party payor companies (insurance companies) for overcharging for the costs of cancer drugs used for the treatment of lung cancer, mesothelioma and many other forms of cancer.  At least one of the drugs …

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), an $8 billion global health enterprise, is western Pennsylvania’s largest employer, with 50,000 employees based in Pittsburgh alone.  It has also performed more hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemoperfusion (HIPEC) procedures than anywhere else in the world.  HIPEC is a new, innovative advanced chemotherapy technique to treat patients with abdominal cavity …

Researchers in Italy conducting a Phase IV study looking at Avastin’s use in a broad, real-life setting for lung cancer patients have found no new safety problems with the drug, and concluded that previous safety issues are no more common in this study than in previous findings.  Avastin, with the drug name bevacizumab, is also …

Source: Phase II Study of Belinostat (PXD101), a Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor, for Second Line Therapy of Advanced Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma Most patients with malignant mesothelioma are only diagnosed with the disease in its later stages, when treatment options are generally limited to systemic chemotherapy. For these patients, combination therapy with pemetrexed and cisplatin is the …

Source: Hamilton College Edward C. Taylor, inventor of pemetrexed (Alimta), has recently donated $1 million to his alma mater, Hamilton College, to establish The Edward and Virginia Taylor Fund for Student/Faculty Research in Chemistry. Long before Mr. Taylor become a Professor of Chemistry at Princeton , he was as student at Hamilton not sure if …

Combination therapy with pemetrexed and cisplatin has been the standard of care for the treatment of mesothelioma since its approval in 2004 by the US FDA. The treatment’s approval was driven by the results of a large Phase III study that demonstrated greater treatment efficacy for patients with malignant mesothelioma than any other chemotherapy treatment …

Source: Lung Cancer A recent issue of the journal Lung Cancer contains an article detailing the results of a study that looked at the efficacy of pemetrexed-based chemotherapy for the treatment of malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. The authors describe their study as the largest one completed that specifically addressed the use of pemetrexed for peritoneal disease. …

Source: CNNMoney.com Eli Lilly has announced that its cancer drug Alimta, when used in combination with cisplatin, has received FDA approval for the first-line treatment of “locally-advanced and metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), for patients with nonsquamous histology.” The FDA’s new approval is the third overall approval that Alimta has received, and the second …