Today starts Lung Cancer Awareness Month. In November, we come together to recognize this deadly cancer and learn about different causes and treatments. Knowing the different statistics and causes could help save a lot of people’s lives. Lung cancer is the leading cause of death due to cancer in men and women. In 2018, it was estimated that 154,050 Americans died from lung cancer, making it around 25 percent of all cancer deaths. It is also a disease that mostly affects the older population. In 2015, 86 percent of all lung cancer patients were 60 years or older. Lung cancer is also the mos ..read more

Researchers have created a new compound that could potentially help mesothelioma patients. Lurbinectedin is a synthetic material that can stop the growth of mesothelioma and other cancers. It works by blocking cytokine transcription in tumor cells. Cytokine transcription is the copying of DNA to allow the passing of the genetic information out of the cell. It is showing promising results as a second line treatment for mesothelioma patients whose cancer has progressed and come back after surgery. In earlier clinical trials the treatment was shown to be very effective. The later clinical trials ..read more

Asbestos is a dangerous mineral that causes many different cancers including mesothelioma, lung cancer, and colon cancer. In the case of mesothelioma, its sharp, microscopic fibers are first inhaled and then become embedded in the mesothelial tissue surrounding the lungs. Since asbestos is only regulated and not banned in the United States, people can still be exposed to asbestos and develop mesothelioma and other cancers. The long latency period also means that people exposed to the carcinogen decades earlier are now being diagnosed. New treatments for the disease need to be created and explo ..read more

A new cancer treatment using electricity has been approved for use in mesothelioma patients. The NovoTTF-100L uses Tumor Treating Fields, which are electric signals tuned to a specific frequency, to disrupt cancerous cell division. The fields are applied to the patient with adhesive bandages and are used for at least 18 hours a day. This is the first new treatment for mesothelioma approved by the FDA in 15 years, and is showing promising results because the mesothelioma tumors are very sensitive to the Tumor Treating Fields and are responding nicely to them. In a study of 80 pleural mesothelio ..read more

Mesothelioma is a very rare and preventable cancer and because of this, many people do not know it exists or what causes it. Mesothelioma Awareness Day helps solve this by making people aware of the disease. Workers and families whose lives have been destroyed by the devastating effects of the disease can be celebrated and shown that they are not the only ones dealing with it. Standing behind those who have lost a loved one to mesothelioma or are going through the fight themselves can also have a very positive effect because when people know that other people are going through something simila ..read more

An immunotherapy treatment that utilizes T cells to fight cancer may soon be covered by Medicare for mesothelioma patients. Immunotherapy is still an emerging set of cancer treatments that utilizes the patient’s own immune system to fight and kill cancer cells. The specific treatment that uses T cells is called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. The treatment helps target mesothelin, which is on the cancer cells’ surfaces. Blood is removed from the patient and the T cells within the blood are genetically engineered to create receptors called chimeric antigen receptors. The T cells ..read more

Biomarkers are measureable substances that indicate if someone has a disease. Doctors and researchers are able to find different substances within a person’s body and deduce that the person has a specific type of cancer. Researchers have found a relatively new biomarker called microRNA, which could possibly be used to diagnose mesothelioma. MicroRNAs control gene expression and can be found in all different types of cells and within bodily fluids including blood, saliva, and urine. They are quantifiable and very stable, which makes them a great way to detect cancer in a person. Mesotheliom ..read more

Radiation therapy, which uses intense energy beams to kill cancer cells, is a very common treatment for cancer. There are different types of radiation, but the most common type is X-rays. Radiation is also useful for preventing cancer from returning, or stopping or slowing its growth. The radiation breaks up DNA inside cancer cells, preventing them from growing and dividing. While the radiation is primarily focused on the tumor being treated, radiation can be dosed to other parts of the body. The radiation then affects normal cells, but they are usually able to repair themselves and continue w ..read more

It was found that the number of pleural mesothelioma diagnoses has stayed the same, while the survival rate for people with the disease has slightly improved. Once asbestos was not used as much because of multiple regulations, the number of diagnoses of mesothelioma was predicted to go down. Instead, the number of diagnoses has remained stable. The peak of mesothelioma diagnoses was expected to happen between 2000 and 2005, but instead people continued to be diagnosed steadily. Mesothelioma rates were predicted to drop off because asbestos became heavily regulated. Multiple uses became ban ..read more

According to a study done at The University of Texas at Dallas, the Ketogenic diet, which is very low in sugar, as well as the administration of a diabetes drug that prevents glucose in the blood from being adsorbed by the kidneys, slowed down the growth of squamous cell carcinoma tumors in mice.  This specific type of lung cancer is not mesothelioma, but the results could eventually be applied to different cancers including mesothelioma. Certain types of cancer can be heavily reliant on glucose as an energy source, allowing their growth to be restricted based on how much glucose is in the bod ..read more