A drug used to treat high cholesterol is now being administered to help fight tumors.  The treatment, lovastatin, is part of a new trial in which it stopped or eradicated tumors in 80% of patients.

Lovastatin was introduced in 1980 to fight lipids and lower cholesterol.  In early studies, researchers noticed a strange side effect: the drug killed cancer cells in laboratory trials.  In order to safely administer the drug, researchers have had to combine lovastatin with other treatment plans.  According to NeoPlas Innovation Director of Research Dr. Stephen Cantrell, "When we have administered a precisely timed regimen of low-dose interferon with lovastatin, tumors have begun regressing, sometimes within just a few weeks."

The lovastatin regimen is expected to fight a number of malignancies, including mesothelioma.  The drug's initial trial occurred in 2000; a patient who then had stage 4 melanoma remains disease-free today.

Unlike chemotherapy, lovastatin's most commonly reported side effect is fatigue.  Patients will not experience nausea, hair loss, vomiting, or immune system suppression.  For the full press release on lovastatin, click here.

For information on clinical trials and studies, visit the MesoRC page here.

A new cancer treatment with promising results for patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma may also be the key to fighting other forms of cancer.

The treatment boosts the strength of the patient's immune system by interacting with T cells, which in turn fight the cancerous cells in the body.  The drug, Blinatumomab, was administered in small daily doses.  Giving a patient as little as 0.005mg of Blinatumomab per day eliminated some cancerous cells in the blood, and tumours shrank or disappeared completely with 0.015mg.

Four out of 38 trial participants were left disease-free after the study.  One of the patients has survived over a year without any signs of the cancer.

Because the drug worked by interacting with the immune system, there is belief that the treatment can work for other, and perhaps any, form of cancer.  Chief Clinician of Cancer Research UK Peter Johnson said, "These exciting preliminary results come from using them to harness the body's own immune responses in a new way. Although the side effects need to be monitored carefully we hope that this type of treatment will prove to be effective in larger trials in the future."

For the full article, click here.

A recent study conducted by Italian researchers titled, “Assessment of Biomarkers in Asbestos-Exposed Workers as Indicators of Cancer Risk,” published in a June 2008 issue of Mutation Research, identifies a new method of monitoring the health of people exposed to asbestos, allowing for earlier diagnosis.

Researchers focused on looking at biological biomarkers and there relation to mesothelioma. Biomarkers are substances used as indicators of a biologic state and allow researchers to distinguish cancer cells from normal cells. Being able to identify mesothelioma biomarkers might allow researchers to develop a method of early diagnosis.

A total of 119 subjects with a history of occupational exposure to asbestos underwent clinical examination and were interviewed by trained personnel, responding to a detailed questionnaire related to duration of asbestos exposure, smoking, and occupational task. According to the occupational tasks, asbestos-exposed subjects were analyzed for their asbestos cumulative dose and the association with the biomarkers was evaluated. A significant increase in biomarkers was evident in subjects who had a higher exposure to asbestos showed. Also, among the occupational groups, maintenance workers, pipe fitters and electricians were exposed to a higher cumulative dose of asbestos fibers.

These results are very promising and every day researchers are getting closer to finding a method of early diagnosis. Hopefully more tests and research will be conducted in the coming months to further develop this specific method of diagnosing.

According to a recent report in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, an epidemic of mesothelioma will hit Libby, Montana in the next 10-20 years.  Dr. Alan Whitehouse, a pulmonologist focusing on asbestos disease treatment in Libby, wrote the report with input from four other doctors, including Dr. Brad Black of the Center for Asbestos Related Disease (CARD Clinic) in Libby.

Whitehouse, who joined the Card Clinic in 2004 to focus exclusively on asbestos victims, said, “The extent of the epidemic of environmental mesothelioma due to exposures based at Libby will probably not peak for another 10 to 20 years. This is a public health problem of considerable magnitude and points to the need for surveillance and early detection of the disease.”

Thus far, a total of 31 cases of malignant mesothelioma have been diagnosed in Libby residents. A significant number of these patients had no direct contact with the mine or mine workers, but merely were members of the community. In one case, a woman had no direct contact with the mine or mine workers, but her work was located 5 miles from the vermiculite mine. She reported that her car was covered in dust everyday. This exposure to asbestos dust eventually led to her mesothelioma diagnosis and subsequent death.

Between the 1940s-1970s, the vermiculite mine in Libby was operating at its highest capacity. Due to the long latency period between exposure to asbestos and a mesothelioma diagnosis, Libby residents are just now starting to be diagnosed with the disease and the numbers are expected to increase. According to Whitehouse, “The number of mesothelioma cases stemming from exposure in Libby likely has been underestimated because it’s been difficult to track the large number of workers who built the Libby dam project from 1966 to 1974. Large numbers of employees at the lumber mill in Libby also frequently were transitory workers.”

Libby is considered to have the highest mesothelioma rate in the United States. More than 200 asbestos deaths have been confirmed in Libby, and the CARD clinic is following about 2,000 additional asbestos cases. “This is the tip of the iceberg,” Whitehouse added. “God knows how many have been exposed. It could be a horrendous epidemic.”

For more information, click here

In a recent American Cancer Society report, researchers revealed that up to 61% of cancer patients use complementary therapies to help combat their disease.  In this study, complementary medicine was characterized as prayer, relaxation techniques, massage, supplementary vitamins, hypnosis, acupuncture, and spiritual counseling.

The report, which echoed findings of many smaller studies, found that complementary therapies were most commonly used among younger patients and women.  Dr. Ted Gansler, co-author of the report, gathered his information from 4,139 cancer survivors in order to determine not only which complementary methods are common, but which are effective.  The patients were interviewed 10 to 24 months after diagnosis.

According to a summary in Forbes, among cancer survivors:

• 61.4 percent used prayer;
• 44.3 percent used relaxation techniques
• 42.4 percent used faith/spiritual healing
• 40.1 percent used nutritional supplements such as vitamins
• 15 percent used meditation
• 11.3 percent used religious counseling
• 11.2 percent used massage
• 9.7 percent participated in support groups

The study also found that other methods were occasionally used: 0.4% used hypnosis, 1% used biofeedback therapy, and 1.2% used acupuncture or acupressure.

In general, complementary therapy was used by 59% of women, compared to only 43% of men.  Specifically, techniques such as tai chi and yoga were used by 10.1 percent of women, but only with 1.9 percent of men. Massage was used by 16.6 percent of women, and 3.9 percent of men.

Alternative medicine expert Dr. Harold Burstein, an instructor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, said, "This study, like many before it, confirms that cancer patients actively pursue a variety of alternative and complementary therapies, usually in conjunction with standard approaches to cancer treatment."

This study is only a stepping stone in discovering the efficacy and impact of complementary therapies.  The study could not determine the correlation between some factors.  For example, complementary therapy was most used among ovarian and breast cancer patients.  Because all ovarian and nearly all breast cancer patients are women, this fact was not surprising.  But why, then, was complementary medicine not used as frequently among uterine cancer patients, who are also all female?

Gansler aims to unlock the mysteries of complementary treatments.  "As more studies are done to evaluate effectiveness, we will want to know whether men are missing opportunities to use some effective complementary methods that are far more popular in women, or whether women use ineffective complementary methods more than men. Or whether some complementary methods are more effective for women than they are for men," he said.