Research & Clinical Trials News

Millions of Americans use Fitbit devices to track their daily activities, exercise and sleep patterns. But a student intern at the Pacific Heart, Lung & Blood Institute (PHLBI) in California is using the popular fitness tracker for a different purpose — as a tool to measure postsurgery recovery for mesothelioma patients. Blair Kimble, a third-year…

Researchers in Slovenia have developed a unique, treatment-recommendation model for mesothelioma patients based heavily upon individualized, genetic biomarkers. They believe their model will lead to better patient outcomes and significantly improve the response rate to chemotherapy, which is still less than 40 percent with mesothelioma. “This is just a start, but it’s going to be…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded its approval of pembrolizumab for first-line treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer last week, moving it closer to becoming a viable treatment option for patients with pleural mesothelioma. Pembrolizumab is marketed by Merck & Co. under the brand name Keytruda. It helps the body’s immune system…

A rising number of women are diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer each year. Researchers in Italy are the latest to study this growing trend and show that asbestos exposure — the main cause of mesothelioma — doesn’t only affect men working certain blue-collar jobs. The report, published in the Italian medical journal La Medicina del Lavoro…

Research from the University of Hawaii Cancer Center shows an immune suppression drug already used to treat multiple sclerosis could become an effective tool against malignant mesothelioma. The drug, fingolimod (FTY720), showed an ability to shrink mesothelioma tumors cells in the laboratory and in animal models without causing substantial side effects. Fingolimod, which is derived…

Pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma patients are eligible for a new clinical trial that combines the latest antibody-drug conjugate with standard-of-care chemotherapy at the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans. The drug, anetumab ravtansine (BAY 94-9343), is the highly touted conjugate that mixes immunotherapy with cytotoxic therapy and targets mesothelin, the tumor surface protein found in…

The Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa has opened a mesothelioma clinical trial involving an anti-cancer enzyme drug showing unprecedented success with the most difficult disease subtypes. Patients with sarcomatoid and biphasic histology — the most treatment-resistant subtypes of mesothelioma — can now enroll in a phase 2/3 clinical trial involving the effectiveness of ADI-PEG 20…

A disorder that forces the body to overproduce platelets is now linked to worsening the prognosis of peritoneal mesothelioma patients, according to researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Previous clinical trials associated a high platelet count, also known as thrombocytosis, with poor outcomes for various malignancies. However, the recent study at The…

Immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) continues to show ground-breaking effectiveness in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma, according to the latest published study. Mesothelioma specialist Dr. Evan Alley detailed the results earlier this month in The Lancet Oncology. Alley, chief of hematology and medical oncology at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, believes pembrolizumab could become an accepted…

A recent study further expands on the important role nutrition plays in how well mesothelioma patients will respond to treatments. Researchers in Japan evaluated the Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) score — an index developed as a screening tool for early detection of poor nutritional status — as a predictive marker for mesothelioma prognosis. CONUT has…