Immunotherapy Targets Cancer Cells in Mesothelioma Patients
Friday, March 5, 2010
Researchers in the Netherlands have shown for the first time the feasibility of using dendritic-cell based immunotherapy in the treatment of mesothelioma patients. They hope the research will lead one day to a vaccine to give people who have been exposed to asbestos to help prevent asbestos-related diseases. Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen closely associated with asbestos. While most western countries have banned asbestos or restricted its use, the incidence of mesothelioma is still increasing worldwide because of the disease’s long incubation period of 20 to 50 years from initial asbestos exposure. In many developing countries including Mexico and India, asbestos is still in wide use so incidence of mesothelioma is expected to increase further in coming decades.
The expected spread of mesothelioma has spurred new research into ways to treat the fatal disease. Chemotherapy consisting of the drugs permatrexed and cisplatin is considered the standard treatment for selected patients, but only extends patients’ lives about three months. On average, patients survive about a year from the first signs of the disease.
One promising new method of treating cancer is immunotherapy which uses the body’s own immune system to target and destroy cancer cells. The aim of immunotherapy is the harness the potency of the immune system in a specifically focused attack on cancer cells, while avoiding the broader toxic effects of chemotherapy.
One type of immunotherapy uses injections of immune system dendritic cells laced with tumor-associated antigens to provoke the immune system to generate antibodies to fight the mesothelioma cell. Dendritic cells are a form of immune system cell.
“This is the first human study on dendritic cell-based immunotherapy in patients with mesothelioma,” said Dr. Joachim Aerts, a pulmonary physician at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands and lead author of a study published online in the American Thoracic Society’s Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Having shown in animal studies that immunotherapy allowed cancer-stricken mice to survive longer, Dr. Aerts and his colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands selected 10 human patients recently diagnosed with mesothelioma who had responded well to chemotherapy. They gave the patients —males ages 56 to 78—three injections of dendritic cells laced with tumor-associated antigens at two-week intervals. The patients tolerated the vaccinations well overall and none had severe toxic reactions.
The researchers said they observed distinct immune responses and anti-tumor responses in the 10 mesothelioma patients. They observed shrinkage of tumors in three patients after the third round of immunotherapy. They cautioned however that a delayed reaction to the earlier chemotherapy could also have contributed to the tumor reduction, and further research was needed on this point. The median survival of the 10 patients was 19 months. Nine patients died of the disease and one patient remained alive after 34 months.
While the size of the study was small, the researchers said the results suggest that selected patients may benefit from dendritic cell immunotherapy without major adverse effects.
“We hope that by further development of our method it will be possible to increase survival in patients with mesothelioma and eventually vaccinate persons who have been in contact with asbestos to prevent them from getting asbestos related diseases,” Dr. Aerts said in a press release.
Read more about alternative treatments for mesothelioma here
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Labels: International News, Research
posted by Wade Rawlins at 10:25 AM
Researchers Seek Antibodies that Predict Mesothelioma, Other Cancers
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
By Wade RawlinsDoctors often have difficulty distinguishing whether a patient has malignant mesothelioma, a cancer that affects the lining of the lung, or adenocarcinoma, a type of cancer that affects the lung itself. Increasingly, they have used sophisticated blood tests that involve various panels of antibodies to help diagnose malignant mesothelioma.
Antibodies are proteins that are produced as part of the body’s immune system reaction. They are produced to fend off or neutralize invading molecules of cold germs and diseases. Clinicians use antibodies to identify or “tag” the specific antigens that indicate tissue changes consistent with mesothelioma or other diseases. For example, elevated amounts of the PSA antibody are a signal of possible prostate cancer in men so after a certain age men routinely have a PSA test when they get a physical. The antibodies are identified in laboratory blood tests.
Yet, there is no overall consensus as to which cocktail of antibodies is best at predicting the presence of mesothelioma. The lab tests are somewhat costly, so there is a need for development of consensus on guidelines for standardized antibody tests for the diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma. It could help reduce diagnostic errors and cost.
Recognizing this knowledge gap, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles reviewed hospital medical records and identified 153 patients that were diagnosed from 2005 to 2007 with malignant epithelioid cells in pleural effusions, the excess fluid in the sac that encases the lungs and causes shortness of breath and chest pain. They analyzed the profile of antibodies and antigens of each malignant pleural effusion and correlated it with the various disease diagnoses. Their aim was to evaluate which antibodies were most predictive.
Currently, the number of antibodies analyzed by a lab to make a diagnosis varies widely. Some cell pathologists use just one or two antibodies per case to focus on the most probable diagnosis in a case. Others cast a wide net and employ more than 20 antibodies to test for every possible diagnosis to provide a comprehensive (and more costly) work-up. A maximum of 31 different immunohistochemical tests had been used by cell pathologists during the work up of the 153 cases examined by the researchers, with an average of 6 antibodies per case.
In an analysis of data published in Diagnostic Cytopathology, the researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said the anti-bodies that provided the best odds for specific diagnoses were TTF-1 for pulmonary carcinoma, calretinin for mesothelioma, ER and PR for breast carcinoma, CA125 for Mullerian, CDX2 for gastrointestinal origin of a carcinoma and PSA for prostatic carcinoma.
The antibody panels were able to diagnose correctly 77 percent of the malignant pleural fluid cell specimens from female patients and 50 percent of those from male patients.
The researchers said a systematic approach is needed to select gender specific anti-body panels to evaluate pleural cytology specimens with malignant epithelioid cells. They said their results would need to be confirmed with other tests using larger sample sizes. But they said their preliminary results do suggest that the antibody panels have significantly better predictive value than ad hoc panels selected by individual cell paththologists. They said the use of two anti-body panels tailored to the patient’s gender for the incidence of various tumors provides a cost-effective and sensitive method for the initial work-up of the cases.
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Labels: Featured News, Research
posted by Wade Rawlins at 7:40 PM
Roadmap Proposed for Research on Asbestos and Suspect Mineral Fibers
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Asbestos has been a leading concern in public health for decades. It’s well established that asbestos fibers when inhaled cause serious and often fatal respiratory diseases including lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs or abdomen. Still questions and areas of scientific uncertainty remain about asbestos and similar fibers.As part of a reappraisal of standards to protect workers from asbestos, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the lead federal agency for prevention of worker illness and injury, is seeking public comment on a new draft report that outlines current scientific understanding of asbestos. The report offers a research roadmap for exploring unanswered questions about asbestos and other elongated mineral fibers. The research findings would build a scientific foundation for future environmental and occupational health policy decisions.
“Asbestos has been a highly visible issue in public health for over three decades and abundant information is in the scientific literature,” the draft document states. “However, in part because of the complexity in the mineralogy, the scientific literature has various inconsistencies and inconclusive evidence which have led to uncertainties in identifying and applying the term asbestos for health and regulatory purposes.”
Since federal regulatory agencies developed workplace standards for exposure to airborne asbestos fibers in the 1970s because of its toxicity, the use of asbestos in the U.S. has declined substantially. Mining of asbestos in the U.S. ceased in 2002. Yet, asbestos products are still in wide use and new products are being manufactured and imported in the U.S.
The regulatory standards apply to six commercially used asbestos minerals— chrysotile, crocidolite, amosite, actinolite asbestos, anthophyllite asbestos and tremolite asbestos. In 1990, to protect workers, NIOSH broadened its definition of airborne asbestos fibers to include in addition to the six types of asbestos, other elongated mineral particles from nonasbestiform minerals. That was based on research in long-term animal studies.
The research roadmap proposes further research to clarify understanding of what determines the toxicity of asbestos and elongated mineral particles such as size or dimensions of the fiber. Studies of workers at talc mines in upstate New York and taconite mines in Minnesota are examples of potentially valuable followup research on the toxicity of non-asbestos elongated mineral particles, the report notes.
The draft document was developed by NIOSH scientists and engineers with professional experience in areas related to asbestos and elongated mineral fibers. Public comments are invited until April 16, 2010.
Read the Draft Report
© AboutMesothelioma.Net. All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or republication of this article or any portion of its content is permitted but must include the AboutMesothelioma.Net link. posted by Wade Rawlins at 3:35 PM
New Cancer Drug Tested in England
Monday, February 22, 2010
Physicians in Great Britain and the U.S. are conducting an initial trial on a new drug that could help mesothelioma patients. The trial involves a drug called LDE 225 manufactured by Novartis Pharmaceuticals. One of the locations where the drug trial is being conducted is the Leicester Royal Infirmary in Leicester, England. Dr. Anne Thomas, a consultant oncologist at Leicester’s hospitals, told the Leicester Mercury newspaper that the new drug works by targeting cancer cells by inhibiting proteins that cancer cell rely on to grow and divide. About 40 patients will be recruited for the first round of testing on humans.
One of the recruits, Bernard Dean, 61 of Derbyshire, told the newspaper that he hoped the eight tablets a day he is taking will halt the growth of three tumors in his lungs. A father of two and a joiner by trade, Dean was diagnosed with mesothelioma a year ago from breathing asbestos. He was diagnosed after going to the doctor with what he thought was a bad cold.
Dean had to stop chemotherapy after four sessions because it was making him too ill and doctors in Nottingham said they could not operate on the tumors.
“ I know it’s the first time the drug has been used outside the laboratory, but I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity go,” Dean said. “If it buys me a few more months or a few more years, it has to be worth it.
Other locations where mesothelioma patients are being recruited for the drug trial are the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the Cancer Therapy and Research Center in San Antonio, Texas and the Novartis Investigative Site in Planta Baja, Spain.
If all goes well with the phase I trial for LDE 225, there will be two more rounds of testing with larger groups of patients. Dr. Thomas said it would be at least five years before the drug is widely available.
Click for contact information about the drug trials
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Labels: Mesothelioma, Research
posted by Wade Rawlins at 2:53 PM
Increased Asbestos Use in Mexico Leading to More Mesothelioma Deaths
Monday, February 8, 2010
Industrial uses of asbestos in Mexico are increasing the number of mesothelioma-related diseases and deaths among Mexican workers, according to a scientific study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. The researchers say Mexico should ban the use of asbestos in all production processes as a public health policy to control the epidemic of asbestos-related diseases and safeguard the population and future generations.Malignant mesothelioma is an incurable cancer of the lining of the lungs or abdomen closely associated with breathing asbestos. The World Health Organization has urged countries to ban the use of asbestos, saying there is no safe level of asbestos exposure.
In their study, occupational health researchers from the Mexican Institute of Social Security and several Mexican cancer hospitals sought to identify the proportion of cases of malignant pleural mesothelioma in Mexico that were attributable to workplace exposure. Despite numerous studies around the world that have underscored the adverse effects of asbestos on workers’ health, the researchers said there was a general lack of recognition of the hazard of asbestos exposure in Mexico.
Because mesothelioma is not recognized as a work-related disease in Mexico, the country’s national health system and Mexican Institute of Social Security, which insures 30 percent of the country’s economically active population, absorb millions of dollars in costs to care for patients with mesothelioma rather than the industries that caused their disease.
In Mexico, chrysotile asbestos —also known as white asbestos—imported from Canada is the most commonly used asbestos fiber and represents the largest threat to workers, the study says. The shipment of asbestos to Mexico is part of an ongoing migration of dangerous industries to less industrialized countries such as Mexico that possess a weak framework for worker protection, the researchers noted. From 1991-2000, Mexico imported about 8 percent of Canada’s total international exports of asbestos, representing $114 million in exports.
Researchers interviewed 472 workers who lived in the Valley of Mexico, an area of central Mexico that encompasses the Mexico City metropolitan area, to assess their potential exposure to asbestos from their jobs as well as from environmental factors such as living near an asbestos factory or having parents who worked around asbestos. More than 100 of the workers had been diagnosed with mesothelioma.
The researchers attributed 82 percent of the cases of mesothelioma in the lining of the lung to workplace exposure to asbestos. They said the pattern of asbestos exposure and disease observed in more industrialized nations in the 1970s is now repeating itselt in Mexico.
“Our results show a clear relationship between industrial use of all types of asbestos and malignant pleural mesothelioma, and in Mexico the major type of asbestos is chrysotile imported from Canada,” the researchers said.
They said deaths from mesothelioma appeared to be underreported in Mexico’s official death records, suggesting the scope of the problem was even greater. Of more than 100 patients diagnosed with mesothelioma, only about a third of patients who had died had mesothelioma listed as a cause of death.
In 2006, the World Health Organization said that all types of asbestos cause mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis and there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos. Even if use of asbestos is eliminated soon, the World Health Organization has estimated there will be 5 to 10 million additional deaths from asbestos. The World Health Organization called for a ban.
But Mexico has not banned asbestos. To the contrary, Mexico’s government supported an effort by asbestos-exporting countries, led by Canada, to block the United Nations from including chrysotile asbestos on a list of recognized toxic substances.
Based of their findings, the researchers called on Mexico to ban the use and commercialization of all forms of asbestos to protect future generations and to require asbestos manufacturers and importers to pay the medical expenses and pensions of diseased workers. The researchers said if asbestos is not banned at once in Mexico, the incidence of mesothelioma would continue to increase in the population for 50 years.
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Labels: Asbestos, International News, Research
posted by Wade Rawlins at 8:25 AM
Combo Treatment for Mesothelioma in Abdomen Helps Some Patients Live Longer
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Researchers say they’ve achieved some success at extending the lives of patients suffering from peritoneal mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the lining of the abdomen, with a combination of surgery and chemotherapy.In the December 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers at eight medical research universities in the U.S., Italy, France, Germany, and Australia reported that of 405 patients treated for peritoneal mesothelioma, the overall median survival rate was 53 months, and 47 percent of the patients were alive after five years.
Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer caused by inhaling asbestos fibers. Patients usually don't experience symptoms until 30 years or longer after exposure to asbestos.
Doctors treated most of the patients with a combination of surgery to remove cancerous tumors from the lining of the abdomen and a procedure called hyperthermic interperitoneal chemotherapy. After removal of visible tumors, the patient’s abdominal cavity was bathed for several hours in a heated chemotherapy solution to treat remaining cancer cells while the patient was in the operating room.
The high temperature of the chemotherapy solution has been found to increase its therapeutic effect. Both heat and direct contact with chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells. Clinical studies have shown the hyperthermic interperitoneal chemotherapy to be more effective than surgery alone in treating gastrointestinal cancers that have spread to the abdomen. It can also help reduce pain.
Of the patients whose treatments were analyzed in the study, 372 patients or about 92 percent received hyperthermic interperitoneal chemotherapy. Researchers followed up with the patients on average about two and half to three years after their surgery.
Nine patients had died following the surgery. Sixty percent of the patients were still alive three years after surgery and 47 percent were alive after five years. Of those 187 patients had complete or near complete removal of cancerous tumors.
,
The researchers said that several factors appeared to be associated with the improved survival rate, including the absence of cancer having spread to the lymph nodes, the completeness of the tumor removal and the chemotherapy treatment.
The researchers said their data suggested that surgery to remove mesothelioma tumors in the abdomen combined with the chemotheraphy prolonged survival in selected patients.
Link to Journal article
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Labels: Mesothelioma, Research
posted by Wade Rawlins at 11:01 AM
Scientists Urge Ban on Asbestos, Say Questions Not Reason for Delay
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
By Wade RawlinsAsbestos is among the most thoroughly investigated of any workplace health hazard. Yet, certain questions still intrigue researchers including the relative potencies of different types of asbestos, the role of fiber size in determining toxicity and the workplace hazards of unregulated mineral fibers that mimic asbestos. But should these questions be a barrier to a national ban on asbestos use?
Researchers at the University of Washington, the U.S. Public Health Service and the Center for Construction Research and Training, argue in the current issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, that unanswered questions about asbestos should not stand in the way of more protective occupational health policy.
Along those lines, the researchers say the most important health priority regarding the six forms of asbestos regulated by federal workplace safety authorities is—simply put— to ban their production and use. Policy makers often must act in the face of uncertainties to safeguard public health, they say
“There is ample reason to do this without waiting for more evidence on the relative potency of chrysotile versus the five regulated amphibole asbestos minerals,” Dr. Michael A. Silverstein, a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, and his co-authors write.
After all the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer recently reaffirmed its conclusion that all forms of asbestos including chrysotile cause mesothelioma as well as cancers of the lung, larynx and ovary. The World Health Organization has urged a worldwide ban on asbestos. Forty-three countries now have asbestos bans in place.
Waiting for more precise information about potential risks before taking action is essentially making a date with an uncertain future and exposing more workers to asbestos-related disease. The diseases typically don’t appear until decades after exposure.
The researchers note that attempts since the 1970s to develop dependable statistical risk assessment models for asbestos have been repeatedly undercut by limitations on reliable exposure data. The conditions of exposure vary too much and remain difficult to classify.
EPA’s current risk assessment method assumes that all types of asbestos fibers are equally potent for causing lung cancer and mesothelioma. But lobbyists for the asbestos industry have sought to change the model to back their claim that chrysotile asbestos—the most common in use today—is less toxic.
In 2008, EPA's attempt to develop a risk assessment model predicting the relative toxicities for different combinations of asbestos fiber types and dimensions eventually ran aground. EPA’s scientific advisory board recommended that the model be rejected, and EPA administrator agreed that it couldn’t be used as the basis for setting public policy. At the time, Silverstein and more than 80 fellow scientists submitted comments opposing the change, saying there had been no new studies that offered a compelling reason for a new risk assessment.
“The history of asbestos cancer risk assessment illustrates the point that elegant mathematics do not make good public policy,” the researchers write. “Trying to turn fundamentally unreliable data into a valid and reliable output is statistical alchemy, no matter how sophisticated and complex the mathematical models.”
Given the difficulty of distinguishing the toxicity of one type of asbestos fiber from another when all are known to cause cancer, the most health protective course is to err on the side of caution, they say.
The researchers note that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s mandate is to take protective action based on the best available evidence. They cite a 1980 Supreme Court decision that OSHA does not have to calculate the exact probability of harm before acting, and “so long as they are supported by a body of reputable scientific thought, the agency is free to use conservative assumptions in interpreting the data… risking error on the side of over protection rather than under-protection.”
While improving analytic methods and developing more precise understanding of the risk of various types of by asbestos fiber remain valid research pursuits, the researchers say the only way to stop asbestos-related disease is to stop the use of all types of asbestos.
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Labels: Asbestos, Featured News, Mesothelioma, Research
posted by Wade Rawlins at 11:02 AM
Sheet Metal Production Linked to Mesothelioma
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
In the August 2009 issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, a new study was published showing that sheet metal workers have an increased risk of dying from mesothelioma. The study which involved 17,345 sheet metal workers confirms that workers with 20 or more years in the industry run a significantly higher risk of dying from the asbestos-related disease.
New York injury attorney, Joe Belluck, of Belluck & Fox, LLP states,"We have represented many sheet metal workers and it is clear, both anecdotally and now through scientific data, they have an increased risk of dying from mesothelioma." Belluck also went to add that it was not surprising that sheet metal workers would be at risk since their job involves using many asbestos-containing materials.
Belluck & Fox, LLP is a New York personal injury law firm that handles many types of work-related injury cases including mesothelioma. The firm has helped numerous victims and their families through their hard times battling mesothelioma.
Labels: Asbestos, Cancer, Mesothelioma, News, Research
posted by Aaron Phelps at 4:23 PM
Multi-Pronged Treatment May Improve Survival for Mesothelioma Patients
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Patients with stage I through III pleural mesothelioma may prolong their lives by combating the cancer with a multi-pronged treatment approach. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology states that the survival rate for patients with stage I – III pleural mesothelioma may improve by using a battery of different forms of treatment, including chemotherapy prior to surgery. Mesothelioma is a rare cancer closely associated with exposure to asbestos, often many decades ago. Microscopic asbestos particles are inhaled and lodge in the lungs.
Patients with stage I – III pleura mesothelioma have cancer limited to one side of the chest so doctors may be able to remove the cancer surgically. In some patients, with stage III mesotheloioma, the cancer may have spread to the lymph nodes.
Researchers report they began the treatment of 77 patients with pleural mesothelioma by administering chemotherapy before surgery using the medications Alimta and Platinol with the aim of first reducing the size of the cancer. The group of patients included with and without cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes.
In three patients, the chemotherapy knocked back the cancer to the extent there were no clinical signs of cancer remaining, though that doesn’t mean the patients are cured of malignant mesothelioma. Microscopic cancer cells may remain undetected.
Fifty-four patients then underwent surgery to remove the diseased lung, the second phase of the multi-pronged approach. Forty patients then received radiation therapy, the third phase of the treatment.
The median survival rate for the entire group was 17 months, but those who underwent all three rounds of treatment had a two-year survival rate of 61 percent, the researchers said.
The researchers involved in the study concluded it produced reasonable long-term survival results.
Labels: Research
posted by Wade Rawlins at 11:37 AM
Iron Range Mesothelioma Study Underway
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27th, one month after the initial planning meeting, University of Minnesota health researchers began sending letters to both current and former taconite workers, and their families, of Minnesota's Taconite Iron Range mine. The University is enlisting them in a wide-ranging study of mesothelioma, a rare cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.The research is being conducted to determine why so many Iron Range workers have been diagnosed, or are dying, from mesothelioma. To date there has been no link between mesothelioma and taconite. However, 52 workers at the mine have been diagnosed with the rare cancer.
A university spokeswoman said the first batch of thousands of letters have been sent to those selected, regardless of their health status, inviting them to participate in the screening program.
$4.9 million was funded by the Legislature last year for the five-year study.
University of Minnesota Researchers Contact Taconite Workers
Iron Range Meeting to Plan Mesothelioma Study
Labels: Mesothelioma, News, Research
posted by Nancy Meredith at 12:10 PM
Hyperthermal Chemotherapy Research Shows Promise for Mesothelioma
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The study concluded that the inhibition of the stress proteins, Hsp40/Hsp70 or Erk1/2 MAPK, might present a new option to increase the success of hyperthermia in mesothelioma. Most malignant mesothelioma cases are diagnosed at advanced stages, and by that point the cases are highly resistant to chemotherapeutic agents and other available treatments.
Currently, there is no known cure for mesothelioma. Malignant mesothelioma is a relatively rare cancer limiting the amount of new research and funding for the cancer. While this research is promising there remains much more testing to be conducted for mesothelioma therapy.
In the article researchers noted that while it had been predicted that the number of cases of mesothelioma will decline after 2010, recent studies indicate the rate of new malignant mesothelioma cases will continue to rise at a high level for another 10–15 years in Europe and in the United States, while in other countries the rate may even further increase.
Mesothelioma cells escape heat stress
Heat treatment for Mesothelioma
Labels: Mesothelioma, Research, Treatments
posted by Nancy Meredith at 9:48 PM
Iron Range Meeting to Plan Mesothelioma Study
Thursday, June 25, 2009
52 miners working at Minnesota’s Iron Range have been found to have mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer. Mesothelioma has been traditionally associated with asbestos exposure; however, there is no known asbestos in the iron ore deposit. When asbestos fibers become airborne, they are breathed into the lungs where serious illness can develop up to 40 years after exposure. The Minnesota Department of Health will be conducting studies on the miners to determine if they have been exposed to asbestos at any time in their lives, prior to working at Iron Range. Some of the mine workers believe that the taconite dust in the mines is the cause of their illness. No studies to date have proven that mesothelioma can be caused by airborne particles other than asbestos.
Mine officials want to know whether iron ore mining can be linked to mesothelioma. The company is planning an expansion at its Northshore mine, and they want answers so they can move forward with the plan. The mining representatives support the health study, but they don't believe the taconite dust is dangerous.
A meeting will be held June 25th as the next step in the effort to determine the cause of the high rate of mesothelioma in the Iron Range workers. The meeting will lay out the plans for conducting a major survey of taconite workers' lung health. Participants will get an x-ray, blood test, and breathing test. The study gets underway this summer.
Taconite Potential Cause of Mesothelioma
Iron Range Study Underway
Labels: Asbestos, Cancer, Mesothelioma, National News, Research
posted by Nancy Meredith at 3:14 PM
Asbestos Linked to Larynx and Ovarian Cancers
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Exposure to asbestos -- long associated with cancers of the lungs -- has been shown to cause some cancers of the ovary and the larynx as well, Cancer Research UK reports. An international team of World Health Organization scientists writing in the journal Lancet Oncology said that people who have been exposed to asbestos are 1.4 times more likely to develop cancer of the larynx than those who had never been exposed.
Dr. Alison Ross, Cancer Research UK's senior science information officer said, "We already know asbestos can cause lung cancer and mesothelioma and this adds two more cancer types to the list."
Cancer Research UK Report
Labels: Asbestos, Cancer, Headline News, Mesothelioma, National News, Research
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