Month: June 2016
Don’t Wait To Make A Doctor’s Appointment
Many people have aversions to going to the doctor. When my Dad began having trouble breathing in the summer of 2011, we urged him to make an appointment. He said, “I’m fine, I’m just having some trouble catching my breath. It’s really hot outside, don’t worry about me!” The symptoms began getting worse and then other symptoms started to arise.
I remember when he went to the doctor and they said he had fluid on his lung. It seemed like it could be an infection; that would have been very treatable. Then they found a shadow on his lung. Then he needed the fluid drained. After that came a procedure that finally gave him the awful diagnosis of mesothelioma.
If you think that you have been exposed to asbestos and are experiencing symptoms of asbestos-related diseases like shortness of breath, coughing, weight loss, etc., please consider getting checked out. It’s important to know what you’re up against if it is mesothelioma. It can allow your medical team to create a treatment plan that will be best for you. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones!
Mesothelioma Nurse Recaps Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation’s Houston Symposium
This year the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation is having three conferences “on the road.” The first of the series was held in Houston, Texas on May 20. I have had the pleasure of attending a few Meso Foundation conferences over the past years, and it is my impression that each one is better than the one before. This conference did not disappoint.
Houston is home to two cancer centers with mesothelioma specialty centers: M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center. Anderson’s mesothelioma program is headed by Dr. Anne Tsao, a medical oncologist, and Dr. David Rice, thoracic surgeon. Baylor’s mesothelioma program is headed by Dr. David Sugarbaker, an international expert on mesothelioma.
The mesothelioma community at these conferences is represented by patients, family members, caregivers, medical experts, health care workers, advocates, and members of the legal community. Attendees can watch presentations by researchers on their latest findings, they can ask questions of the experts, and they can network and meet others who are also dealing with mesothelioma.
My takeaways from the Houston conference include:
- Clinical Trials are showing the way to a personalized approach to treating mesothelioma.
- The goal is to get to a point that mesothelioma is a manageable, chronic disease.
- This spring has brought breakthroughs for the future treatment of mesothelioma.
- The feeling among the researchers was that they are progressing towards a cure.
- Some studies have shown promising results for the four subtypes of mesothelioma.
Nationwide, the number of cancer patients who participate in clinical trials is between 3-5% for adults. The Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation reports that mesothelioma patients consistently reach out to them to ask about clinical trials, and the number who participate in mesothelioma trials is over 55%. This is one of the tangible, impressive services that the Meso Foundation provides for the mesothelioma community.
The doctors who presented were passionate about helping patients with mesothelioma. It was evident that the next generation of researchers who presented have the passion to continue the work towards a cure.
Collaboration, research, clinical trials, awareness, advocacy, are the keys to further progress towards a cure. Patients and families were encouraged to get involved and to request more money for research for this cancer from the government and other sources.
The next two conferences for mesothelioma are being held in San Francisco on September 16, and in Chicago on October 7. Get involved- knowledge is power!
Can a Protein Garbage Truck Clear Out Mesothelioma Cells?
Researchers are turning to cell garbage collectors, or the proteasome, in their latest attempt to fight cancer. Scientists have known for years that proteasomes clean out unneeded or damaged proteins, now, they are focusing on lassoing them to attack cancer cells.
Two biochemists, Craig Crews and Raymond Deshaies, began discussing this possibility in 1998 in a bar. Crews, the L.B. Cullman Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University, has spent his career tinkering, as he calls it, with proteasomes. After years of research, he is on the cusp of a breakthrough treatment that can gobble up the proteins that help cause cancer.
This approach can target diseases that are considered undruggable or resistant to most treatments, like mesothelioma, a rare, terminal cancer. Currently, there is no known cure for the asbestos-caused disease that invariably recurs after building up a resistance to chemotherapy or other anti-cancer drugs that should kill the cancers. Mesothelioma is diagnosed in nearly 3,000 Americans each year.
In a 2010 presentation entitled, “Contemporary Treatment of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma,” Nicholas J. Vogelzang, MD, Chair and Medical Director, Developmental Therapeutics Committee, US Oncology Research, Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada, noted that proteasome inhibitors were one of “many new agents worthy of study” in the fight against mesothelioma. Dr. Vogelzang is a renowned medical oncologist, cancer researcher and mesothelioma expert.
Crews and Deshaies, Professor of Biology and Executive Officer for Biology Division of Biology & Biological Engineering California Institute of Technology, and founder of the Proteome Exploration Laboratory at the Beckman Institute at Caltech, have built their careers around the proteasome and have spawned several pharmaceutical companies, including Arvinas, focused on harnessing the power of the proteasome.
After rounds of research, Crews and his team found that when the proteasome was “jammed” up, toxic levels of old proteins built up in the cancer cells before the proteosome could clear them out. Without the help in throwing away the discarded proteins, the cancer cells were overwhelmed and died. Crews determined that this could be recreated by an anti-cancer drug.
“You can imagine a small molecule, a drug, that works under this new paradigm, will truly be one that can seek and destroy rogue, disease-causing proteins,” said Crews in a May 18 article in Stat News.
Crews was recently awarded the National Cancer Institute’s Outstanding Investigator Award. Crews, one of 60 U.S. scientists to receive the award, which brings $4.2 million over seven years to support his lab’s research, says the money will make a big difference in his research and could lead to “a second chance” for drugs that were abandoned because “they couldn’t block the function of rogue proteins.”
“This award will help us change the current small-molecule drug paradigm that fails to target 75% of rogue proteins,” Crews said. “Instead, we propose to hijack the cells’ quality-control machinery so that this new class of drugs can bind to and destroy these disease-causing proteins.”
If everything continues on track, Crews hopes that Arvinas, working with Merck and Genentech, will be testing this approach to cleaning up cancer within a year.
For the full story, “A tinkerer takes on cancer by hijacking the tiny garbage trucks inside every cell,” see the May 18 article in Stat News.
Key Ingredient in Aspirin Could Lead to New Treatment for Mesothelioma
The cancer-fighting properties of aspirin have long been touted. In fact, a daily aspirin may help prevent cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Now, another study offers more evidence of a positive association between aspirin’s key ingredient, salicylic acid, and its cancer-fighting properties.
In what is encouraging news for mesothelioma patients, researchers report that both aspirin and diflunisal can stop inflammation and cancer. The two nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have the key ingredient salicylic acid that researchers from Gladstone Institutes, of San Francisco, report is effective in inhibiting two proteins, p300 and CREB-binding protein (CBP), preventing cellular damage caused by inflammation. The proteins, according to the researchers, control the levels of proteins that cause inflammation or are involved in cell growth.
“Salicylic acid is one of the oldest drugs on the planet, dating back to the Egyptians and the Greeks, but we’re still discovering new things about it,” said senior author Eric Verdin, MD, associate director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology. “Uncovering this pathway of inflammation that salicylic acid acts upon opens up a host of new clinical possibilities for these drugs.”
For people who have previously been exposed to asbestos and face a life-long risk of developing pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs, this finding brings hope that the potential for developing the disease could be minimized. Microscopic asbestos fibers when inhaled can lodge in the lungs and remain there causing inflammation that eventually leads to pleural mesothelioma. Many of the cancer treatments are ineffective against the disease, and many experts agree, that the best way to fight the cancer is through prevention.
In the study, the researchers determined that suppressing p300 with diflunisal “stopped cancer progression and shrunk the tumors in the mouse model of leukemia.” The team has also conducted a trial in human hematologic cancers and determined the salicylic acid to be safe. The next step for them is to collaborate in the development of novel epigenetic therapies to find more effective treatment for leukemia patients.
In a separate study in 2015, researchers from the University of Hawaii Cancer Research Center “reported aspirin administration to individuals at high risk of developing MM [malignant mesothelioma], such as those with a history of asbestos …may prevent or delay the growth of MM, possibly increasing life expectancy and also increasing opportunities for early MM detection.”
“The ability to repurpose drugs that are already FDA-approved to be part of novel therapies for cancer patients is incredibly exciting,” said co-author Stephen D. Nimer, MD, director of Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Although evidence may support aspirin use for its anti-cancer properties, doctors stop short of recommending aspirin to prevent cancer. Before starting an aspirin regimen please consult with your doctor.
In the United States, approximately 2,500 to 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. The disease is incurable, though there are standard treatments to manage the disease including chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.
The study can be found in the May 31 issue of eLife.
Mesothelioma Recovery Requires Close Attention to Detail
Mesothelioma is a rare disease and is difficult to diagnose. Once diagnosed, some patients undergo surgery as part of their treatment plan. I’ve found over the years of treating patients after mesothelioma surgery, that there are many extremes in what people think is important, and what they don’t see as important.
Some of the symptoms that you should be aware of are dizziness, persistent coughing (more than you are comfortable with), shortness of breath, weight loss, weight gain (puffiness in your extremities), constipation, pain, weakness (not able to do what you could do a day or two ago), and fever. Paying attention to the way you or your loved one is feeling is important for a smooth recovery. Nutrition is also an important factor to monitor including how much food, and what types of food are being consumed. Also, ensuring the patient is abiding by the fluid intake requirements is important.
Medications and their side effects can also be an issue. When patients leave the hospital after surgery many are on pain medication. As everyone is different, it is important to pay attention to the constipation issue and follow a bowel regime. Often patients are on beta blockers for their heart rate and, sometimes as they get better, the dosages need to be adjusted.
Some of these points seem like they are simple, common sense things. It is surprising, however, how quickly they can escalate into serious issues when they are not addressed. It is important to listen to yourself: if something does not feel right, or if have a question about it, reach out. Call someone on your medical team and get the reassurance that you need.
A successful recovery is a team sport and you are the center of the team! Mesothelioma recovery can be tough, but together with your support system and your mesothelioma team preventable complications can be avoided.
Reach out if you have any questions!
If you have any questions regarding any aspect of your mesothelioma treatment, feel free to email me at [email protected].
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