Mesothelioma Help Cancer News
Risk of Asbestos Exposure for Workers in Aftermath of Hurricane
The cleanup after Hurricane Sandy will involve thousands of workers tearing down and repairing flood damaged houses and structures. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is warning Hurricane Sandy cleanup workers and members of the public in New York and across the region to be aware of the danger of asbestos. Asbestos fibers cause deadly respiratory diseases including mesothelioma, a form of cancer.
Asbestos, a mineral fiber, was added to many building materials because of its strength and insulating properties until the 1980s. When houses and buildings containing asbestos materials are renovated or demolished, the renovation and demolition activities often generate airborne asbestos fibers. The fibers are microscopic, making them more hazardous because you can inhale them without knowing it. Asbestos is classified as a known human carcinogen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
While the use of asbestos has been curtailed in many workplaces, construction and demolition workers remain at risk of asbestos exposure today because of past construction practices, according to the National Cancer Institute.
OSHA has regulations that construction industry employers must follow to protect cleanup workers from exposure to asbestos. The construction industry standards require employers to follow various standards to protect workers from inhaling asbestos fibers. The detailed standards vary depending on the type of work being undertaken, the amount of asbestos in the air and other factors. Among the requirements is an initial assessment of a demolition or renovation project to estimate the expected exposure to asbestos during the work.
You and your employer can find more information about how to obtain a copy of the booklet, Asbestos Standards for Construction.
Approximately 2,500 to 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year in the United States. Most are older workers, retired workers and veterans who had regular exposure to asbestos for a period of weeks or months in a workplace or during military service.
Mesothelioma is an aggressive form of cancer. While there is no known cure for the disease, doctors have the most success in managing the disease when it is diagnosed early. Treatments for mesothelioma include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
Medical Milestone: Gene Therapy Drug Approved To Fix Genetic Code Typos
Mark your calendar: A new era in medicine has begun.
The European Union has licensed for sale the first gene-therapy drug in the Western world. Gene therapy is a type of medicine that treats disease by replacing defective genes with functioning genes. It holds great potential for treating diseases caused by defective genes, though it has remained largely experimental and confined to research laboratories to date. One day, patients with mesothelioma may benefit.
The European Commission on Friday granted approval to Glybera, a gene therapy medicine that treats a rare inherited disorder called lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD), according to the BBC News.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20179561
People with the extremely rare disease are unable to produce enough of an enzyme to digest fat properly. Fat levels in the blood may increase dramatically. A person with the enzyme deficiency may suffer life-threatening pancreatitis attacks as well as early onset of diabetes.
The drug developed by a Dutch company, UniQuire, in a single injection that contains a gene that helps the body produce the necessary enzyme.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the European action is a milestone for the field of gene therapy. In an article in the WSJ, Len Seymour, a professor of gene therapy at Oxford University who is unaffiliated with Glybera, said the approval begins to exemplify what genetically coded medicines can do.
UniQure plans to file an application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next year, seeking regulatory approval for the drug, the company said in a statement. No gene therapy medicines have been approved in the United States so far.
Researchers have been studying the effectiveness of gene therapy in treating various diseases in clinical trials since a landmark discovery in 1989 that an abnormality in one gene caused the disease cystic fibrosis. That led to the premise that doctors could treat a patient’s disease by identifying an abnormal gene mutation and replacing the defective gene with a corrected copy. But scientists have run into many set backs in the development of gene therapy.
While the initial applications of gene therapy are likely to involve rare diseases that may be cured by replacing a single defective gene, researchers also are exploring the potential of gene therapy for treatment of cancer including mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos exposure.
The University of Pennsylvania has an ongoing gene therapy clinical trial for patients who are newly diagnosed with mesothelioma and patients whose cancer has not responded to other treatments. Patients receive a combination of chemotherapy and a new type of gene therapy called immuno-gene therapy that uses a modified common cold virus to trigger the patient’s immune system to destroy cancer cells. The doctors have been encouraged by the response of mesothelioma patients receiving the experimental treatment, Dr. Daniel Sterman an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania said in a news release.
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2011/12/igt-cancer/
Approximately 2,500 to 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year in the United States. Most are older workers, retired workers and veterans who were exposed to asbestos fibers decades ago in a workplace or in military service.
Know more about mesothelioma and how you can deal with it.
Mesothelioma Patients May Have Greater Access To Care Under Proposed Medicare Legal Settlement
Patients with mesothelioma and other chronic diseases and conditions may have improved care, as part of a proposed change of Medicare policy. Under a proposed legal settlement of a landmark class-action lawsuit, Medicare would start covering the costs of certain treatments for those patients with long-term diseases who need skilled services simply to maintain or slow their deterioration regardless of the underlying illness.
For years, thousands of mesothelioma patients and other Medicare beneficiaries with incurable diseases have been denied needed care based on the grounds that their condition was “not improving.” Medicare advocates said the “improvement” standard seemed to lead to cutting off physical, occupational and speech therapy for patients who had reached a plateau in their treatment.
The application of the standard is particularly devastating for patients with advanced cancers, ALS, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis and other degenerative diseases who are not going to improve and are seeking simply to hold onto their health and slow the effects of a disease.
According to an article in The New York Times, the proposed settlement, once approved by a federal district judge, will lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service to rewrite the Medicare benefits manual to delete suggestions that a patient’s receipt of Medicare coverage depends on the patient continuing to show improvement. The new policy would state that Medicare will cover skilled nursing care and therapy services needed for a patient to maintain their health.
Medicare provides up to 100 days of coverage per benefit period. The settlement confirms that Medicare is available for skilled nursing and therapy that is needed to maintain a person’s condition or prevent slow deterioration, for nursing home, home health and outpatient therapy.
According to the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a party to the lawsuit, the settlement is NOT limited to particular conditions or diseases. It applies to anyone who requires skilled services, regardless of the underlying illness, disability or injury.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of a nationwide class of Medicare beneficiaries by six individuals and seven national organizations representing people with chronic conditions.
Mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, strikes 2,500 to 3,000 people a year in the United States. Symptoms of mesothelioma take 20 years to 50 years to appear. As a result, people diagnosed with mesothelioma are typically older workers, retired workers and veterans who were exposed to asbestos dust in a workplace or during military service. While the disease takes decades to appear, it advances rapidly once it is diagnosed.
Still Time to Make a Donation for Mesothelioma Research Through the American Cancer Society’s Rappelling Fundraiser
New York mesothelioma attorney Jessica Russell of Belluck & Fox, LLP took the plunge in September in the first-ever “Over the Edge” rappel for cancer event in Jersey City, New Jersey, to raise funds for mesothelioma research. Sponsored by the American Cancer Society, the event, where participants rappelled nearly 500 feet down the side of a 34-story high-rise, raised over $271,000 for cancer research. The American Cancer Society has announced that this year’s event website is still active, and it is not too late to donate to the cause.
Although Russell, an attorney at Belluck & Fox, LLP who focuses on the firm’s asbestos and mesothelioma cases, was first alerted about the event as a joke from her husband who knew she was “dreadfully” afraid of heights, she took on the challenge after she thought of all of her clients “whose lives were cut short due to a disease that was completely avoidable.”
Pleural mesothelioma, a pulmonary cancer caused by past exposure to asbestos, is aggressive and requires equally aggressive treatments to combat the disease. Nearly 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with the disease each year. Currently, there is no known cure for mesothelioma, but researchers continue to conduct studies and clinical trials to find a new, effective treatment.
Buoyed by this year’s success, the American Cancer Society is reaching out to this year’s rappellers to repeat their daredevil stunt next year. Using the teaser, “if you have friends who are jealous of you and want to participate next year (or if you want to do it again!), please encourage them to sign up,” the organizers hope to surpass this year’s fundraising efforts.
Once may have been enough for Russell. “While I do not see myself signing up to jump off of any more buildings any time soon, I did appreciate that this event was unique in that it was more of a personal challenge, which drove me to appreciate what we were all working toward,” said Russell.
See the initial article on Russell’s adventure.
New Cancer Fighting Drug Available to Mesothelioma Patients
A new cancer fighting drug is available to newly-diagnosed mesothelioma patients as part of a clinical trial at the University of Southern California.
Dr. Parkash Gill, an oncologist who supervises the mesothelioma laboratory at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, announced this month that the cancer fighting drug EPH-B4 is available to qualifying patients who have not undergone any conventional treatment and to patients who have exhausted other treatment options such as chemotherapy and surgery.
Due to the role that the EphB4 protein plays in the transition of benign tumors into a malignant state, Gill has focused much of his research on developing EphB4-specific antibodies that have been shown to significantly interfere with blood vessel formation and reduce the size of tumors in animal experiments.
Gill said the drug has shown great promise as a solo treatment and in conjunction with chemotherapy drugs such as Alimta, Cisplatin and Carboplatin. It has been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a phase I clinical trial.
Gill and a team of researchers reported in the American Journal of Pathology that that drug inhibited the development of malignant tumors by interfering with the sprouting of new bloods vessels from existing vessels.
The Mesothelioma Research Foundation of America, which is supporting Gill’s research, provides funding to find a cure for mesothelioma.
Doctors diagnose approximately 2,500 to 3,000 new cases of mesothelioma in the United States each year. Most mesothelioma sufferers are older workers, retired workers and veterans who inhaled cancer-causing asbestos fibers in workplaces decades ago. Asbestos can trigger respiratory problems and growth of cancerous tumors 20 to 50 years after breathing or swallowing the microscopic fibers.
To contact Dr. Gill about the clinical trial, click here.
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