What's new in mesothelioma research?

There is always research going on in the area of mesothelioma. Scientists are looking for the causes of the disease and ways to prevent it. Doctors are working to find better ways to diagnose and treat the disease. Despite recent progress, there is still a lot to be learned about the best way to treat these cancers.

Causes and prevention

A lot of research has focused on learning exactly how asbestos changes normal cells and their DNA to cause cancer. Understanding how these fibers produce cancer might help us find ways to prevent those changes.

Now that we know about the dangers of asbestos, we can limit or stop its use in homes, public buildings, and the workplace. But rules to protect people from asbestos are much less strict (or they do not exist at all) in some other countries.

Research is also going on to learn about the role (if any) of a virus (SV40) that has been linked to mesothelioma in some studies.

Treatment

Because chemotherapy drugs have not worked very well against advanced mesothelioma, new ideas are now being studied. These include drugs which kill cancers by stopping their blood supply and drugs which alter the ability of some cancer cells to grow quickly.

Doctors are always learning more about the best way to treat people with mesothelioma. Treatments that combine surgery, radiation, and chemo are now being studied and may provide the most promising option for some patients. New drugs, along with other types of treatments, are now being tested in clinical trials.

Another new approach is a type of gene therapy. This treatment uses special viruses that have been changed in the lab. The virus is put into the space around the lungs where it infects the cancer cells. When this happens, the virus in turn injects a gene into the cancer that may help immune system cells to attack the cancer.(cancer.org)