Mesothelioma Vaccine Seen as Breakthrough
A new mesothelioma vaccine which affixes antigens to a patient’s dendritic cells (DC), has been shown to evoke a T-cell, or cancer-fighting response, against mesothelioma tumors in four of eight patients tested.
Conducted by Joachim G Aerts, a pulmonary specialist at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, this first human study on DC-based immunotherapy in individuals with mesothelioma has been shown safe for human use, according to a subsequent study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a publication of the American Thoracic Society.
In fact, not only is this form of immunotherapy safe - producing flu-like symptoms that normalized within 24 hours, with no subsequent autoimmune response – but it is already improving the lives of a few individuals suffering from mesothelioma, a somewhat rare cancer of the mesothelial (epithelial) tissues that line the two primary body cavities, as three separate organs (pleural, pericardial and peritoneal), that individually protect the lungs, heart and abdominal organs from external trauma.
Prior to this immunotherapy breakthrough, the primary treatment modalities were chemotherapy, radiation, and occasionally surgery. These were administered individually or in tandem, where patients were healthy enough to tolerate them, with the most common treatment being dual-course chemotherapy with Alimta (pemetrexed) and cisplatin, a compound derived from platinum.
These treatments, however, rarely extended lifetimes beyond a few months, even when combined with surgery, and are generally considered palliative rather than curative. Thus, an individual diagnosed with mesothelioma and given the common prognosis of about a year to live, rarely survives beyond 18 months.
The new immunotherapy regimen is potentially curative, and represents a first in the treatment of mesothelioma, which has heretofore focused on relieving pain and improving breathing – two of the more difficult symptoms of the disease, which has in recent history claimed such notable individuals as Merlin Olsen.
Olsen, who discovered the disease in its latter stages and consequently succumbed rapidly, filed a lawsuit regarding the disease on December 31, 2009. He died on March 12 of 2010, less than three months later.
Mesothelioma, which occurs primarily in the lungs as malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM; the form Olsen acquired) ranks high on the list of rare but fatal cancers. Claiming about 2,500 U.S. victims a year from an estimated pool of 10,000 – all of whom have presumably been exposed to asbestos and acquired asbestos-related diseases as a result – mesothelioma is the legacy of decades of U.S. asbestos mining and manufacture into products ranging from floor tiles to oven gloves.
Fortunately, in 1989 the U.S. Environmental Agency, or EPA, moved to ban asbestos. The move was later overturned in a circuit court in New Orleans, but much of the prohibition remained intact, reinforced by rising industry awareness, in the latter half of the last century, that asbestos in domestically manufactured products was contributing to legacy costs that have bankrupt numerous U.S. companies, the most recent being RPM International.
In fact, a RAND Corporation study suggests that claims could continue rising, reaching $200 billion to $265 billion. This is not good news for American business, which is already impacted by the Manville Trust, established in 1988 to pay then-present and future asbestos claims. In 2001, according to RAND, the Trust announced that it would, in future, pay only 5 percent of the full value of claims in order to conserve funds for future lawsuits.
Asbestos is the only known cause of mesothelioma, and for most victims the diagnosis is the same as a death sentence. Which is why sufferers and the medical community are keeping their eyes on the promise offered by this new immunotherapy regimen, which shows four of eight patients exhibiting an immune response against the tumors, and three of those four demonstrating actual tumor regression.
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