Mesothelioma Clinical Trial Matches Treatment to Genetic Profiles
This study met its primary endpoint, showing promising clinical activity of abemaciclib in patients with p16ink4A-negative mesothelioma who were previously treated with chemotherapy,” the authors concluded. “[This therapy] warrants further investigation in a randomized study as targeted stratified therapy.” Some patients may have genes that allow a particular response to a drug, such as abemaciclib, but there is still potential to find targets beneficial to other patients. The researchers are interested in adding additional therapy options for patients as the clinical trial continues. Depending on their genetic...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - February 28, 2022 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Fran Mannino Source Type: news

Former Worker in Libby, Mont., Wins $36.5 Million in Asbestos Case
The verdict was the first of hundreds of cases pending against the company hired to oversee medical care and safety for workers at a mine and mill in Libby, Mont. #libby #mont (Source: Reuters: Health)
Source: Reuters: Health - February 25, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news

Asbestos exposure: Five symptoms and four deadly diseases caused by asbestos
PARLIAMENT workers were struck with an asbestos exposure warning this afternoon as safety work at Speaker's House discovered an incident from Autumn 2021. What are the symptoms of asbestos exposure? (Source: Daily Express - Health)
Source: Daily Express - Health - February 19, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news

Former faculty member gives UCLA $10 million to advance ocular genetics research
UCLA has received a $10 million commitment from Dr. Bronwyn Bateman to establish a center for ocular genetics center at the UCLA Stein Eye Institute. The gift will support research projects as well as the center ’s startup costs and greatest needs moving forward.Bateman is a former professor of ophthalmology and pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.“As a long-standing partner of Stein Eye, Bronwyn has helped advance many of our vision programs,” said Dr. Bartly Mondino, UCLA’s Bradley R. Straatsma, M.D. Professor of Ophthalmology and director of the Stein Eye Institute. “We are grateful for t...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - February 7, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news

NCI Moving Closer to More Effective Treatment for Pleural Mesothelioma
A research team at the National Cancer Institute is developing a novel therapy that could change the treatment paradigm for pleural mesothelioma. It is a long-awaited, much-needed breakthrough. The potential intraoperative adjuvant is a spray-on hydrogel involving genetically engineered molecular nanoparticles designed to specifically target and kill tumor cells. It showed surprising efficacy in a recent laboratory study at the NCI with mesothelioma models in mice. Nature Nanotechnology published the study, detailing the impressive results. “This could be a huge deal, potentially a real game-changer in treating ...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - February 1, 2022 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Fran Mannino Source Type: news

FDA Looks at Stricter Testing for Asbestos in Talc
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently moved a step closer to a much-needed, stricter standardization of testing for the presence of toxic asbestos fibers in talc-containing cosmetic products. On Jan. 13, the FDA released its 124-page consensus document written by the Interagency Working Group on Asbestos in Consumer Products. It outlined a scientific assessment on testing that should better protect the public. Eight U.S. federal agencies, selected by the FDA, were represented in the Interagency Working Group, which began the project in 2018. The burgeoning issue of small amounts of dangerous asbestos in t...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - January 18, 2022 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Fran Mannino Source Type: news

Mesothelioma Specialty Centers Factor in 2021 Best Hospital Rankings
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston is No. 1 for the seventh consecutive year on the prestigious U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals for Cancer list. The annual cancer rankings were included in the media company’s recently published Best Hospitals 2022 guidebook. Cancer is one of the 15 specialties for which hospitals in the U.S. were ranked. Other hospitals in the top five are: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City; Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota; Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center. Mesothelioma specialt...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - January 12, 2022 Category: Environmental Health Authors: James Fannon Source Type: news

NCI Opens New Immunotherapy Clinical Trial for Mesothelioma
This study offers a reasonable chance of benefit. It would be nice to see if these patients again respond to immunotherapy.” The FDA approved Opdivo and Yervoy, an immunotherapy combination, for first-line treatment of pleural mesothelioma in 2020. It was the first new systemic approval in more than 16 years. However, it only increased the median overall survival time from 14.1 months to 18.1 months, when compared to standard chemotherapy. Find Immunotherapy Clinical Trials ...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - January 4, 2022 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Chris Elkins Source Type: news

How One Massachusetts Town Could Shape the Future of Tobacco
As Katharine Silbaugh sees it, one mark of a good public policy is being both big and small: big in its potential impact, small in its disruption to people’s lives. Silbaugh, a lawyer and one of the 240 elected “town meeting members” who make up local government in the picturesque Boston suburb of Brookline, thinks she’s managed to thread that needle with a recently passed ordinance unlike any other in the country. The ordinance, co-sponsored by Silbaugh and pharmacist and fellow town meeting member Anthony Ishak, ties the right to buy tobacco not to age, but to birth date. At the federal level, Ame...
Source: TIME: Health - December 9, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jamie Ducharme Tags: Uncategorized feature healthscienceclimate Source Type: news

Clinical Trials Lead to Promising Updates in Mesothelioma Immunotherapy
This study recruited patients with unresectable pleural mesothelioma who had not received prior chemotherapy. The primary endpoint of median overall survival was significantly longer with the addition of bevacizumab to chemotherapy at 18.8 months versus 16.1 months with chemotherapy alone. However, adverse events such as hypertension and bleeding were more common in the bevacizumab group. More recently, studies such as the phase II RAMSES trial in 2020 have shown promising results for combining anti-VEGF medication with chemotherapy as a second-line treatment. The addition of the VEGF inhibitor ramucirumab significan...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - December 8, 2021 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Fran Mannino Source Type: news

Mesothelioma Clinical Trial to Involve Drug Studied for COVID-19
A novel phase II clinical trial for malignant mesothelioma is expected to open soon and involve a versatile, biological drug already showing promise in treating severe cases of COVID-19. Oncotelic Therapeutics Inc., an innovative, immunotherapy/oncology company in Agoura Hills, California, hopes to open the mesothelioma clinical trial by March at a dozen prominent U.S. treatment centers, including the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania Medicine in Philadelphia and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “We’re excited about the potential. There is a huge unmet medical need with ...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - December 7, 2021 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Chris Elkins Source Type: news

Asbestos exposure from 20 years ago killed IT worker
Jason Williams was given months to live when he became ill due to asbestos exposure 20 years ago. (Source: BBC News | Health | UK Edition)
Source: BBC News | Health | UK Edition - December 2, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news

Too many firefighters are dying of cancer. UCLA ’s Derek Urwin aims to change that
They ’re our modern-day superheroes — charging into burning buildings without hesitation, rescuing those in peril, staving off destruction. Butin risking their lives for us, firefighters pay a heavy price, with cancer rates that far outpace the public at large.Derek Urwin, a longtime firefighter who expects to complete his Ph.D. in chemistry during the winter quarter, is out to change that, using his knowledge of chemistry to  improve firefighter health and safety and, ultimately, bring these cancer rates down. It’s a mission that had a very personal origin.In 2014, Urwin ’s brother Isaac, then 33, died of leukem...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 22, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news

Court Deals Blow to Johnson & Johnson Bankruptcy Plan for Talc Cases
A federal judge in North Carolina delivered a major setback to Johnson & Johnson and its controversial plan to unload all talc-related litigation in bankruptcy court through a recently-created subsidiary. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Whitley said he was “obligated” to move the case from North Carolina to New Jersey, where Johnson & Johnson is headquartered and thousands of the talc-related lawsuits are already pending. The move from North Carolina to New Jersey takes J&J from a jurisdiction considered favorable to its bankruptcy strategy to one that is unfavorable, based upon past cases. Johnson & Jo...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - November 12, 2021 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Fran Mannino Source Type: news

University of Vermont Study Opens New Door for Mesothelioma Treatment
Researchers at the University of Vermont Cancer Center have uncovered a new approach to the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma, sparking a clinical trial that has opened with considerable anticipation. The trial involves RSO-021, a novel drug that works by inhibiting a tumor cell’s ability to manage its own toxic waste byproduct. “The key to the therapy is the universal vulnerability present in these cancer cells that our therapeutic approach interferes with,” University of Vermont professor Brian Cunniff, the study’s lead researcher, told The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com. “These tumor cells...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - November 3, 2021 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Fran Mannino Source Type: news