New Treatment For Mesothelioma Patients
A new form of treatment for mesothelioma patients is showing success in one woman’s battle with the illness. The positive results are in the earliest stages so no definitive conclusions can be drawn, but doctors and scientist are excited with the early results. Typically, mesothelioma is a fatal form of cancer and this case is the first that has showed the cancer growth has stopped.
The patient is a woman in her late forties who was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2008. She was originally exposed to asbestos as a child, and by the time the cancer was found it had filled most of the chest space where her right lung had been. After trying currently approved treatments and having no positive results, she tried a new treatment at the NeoPlas Innovation’s Nashville clinic.
The new treatment is a combination of two existing drugs and is considered an “off-label” use of the medicines lovastatin, a cholesterol lowering agent, and interferon. After two months of treatment the patients CT scans showed that the cancer had stabilized and one of the tumors had regressed in size. The same medicines are offered for those suffering from other aggressive cancers such as colon, renal, pancreatic, melanoma and certain sarcomas however, only on a case-by-case basis.
Lovastatin first showed effects against mesothelioma cells in laboratory cultures in 1998. Dr. Cantrell, from NeoPlas Innovation, said, “The key to moving from the lab to success in humans has been taking a fresh look and finding the right medicines to combine. When we have administered a precisely timed regimen of low-dose interferon with lovastatin, the results have been surprising.”
The most common side effect of the treatment is fatigue and most never experience the nausea, hair loss or suppressed immune system side effects associated with chemotherapy and radiation. More information on the treatment can be found at NeoPlas Innovation’s web site: www.neoplas.org.
Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/cancer/treatment/prweb2422344.htm
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