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With over 3,000 new cases of mesothelioma being diagnosed each year, science is fighting to find effective drugs to fight this disease. Mesothelioma is a rare form of lung disease caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos. At this point in time, standard treatment involves, surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. There is ongoing research into finding more effective drugs. The drugs currently in use haven’t shown the hoped for results and tend to be combined with other chemotherapy drugs for better results. This combining of different drugs has shown some improvement but there is no treatment standard at this time. There is an ongoing trial in the UK regarding chemotherapy’s effectiveness against mesothelioma symptoms. The trial is comparing two different combinations of chemotherapy with no chemotherapy. The goal is to see which treatment is better at controlling the symptoms of mesothelioma. This trial completed its patient recruitment in July 2006. The researchers are now awaiting the results. In a different 2004 study evaluated the combination of raltitrexed and cisplatin. The researchers were hoping that this combination would better for advanced cases of mesothelioma than using cisplatin on its own. Unfortunately, the result was that there was only a slight difference between the trial groups. There is another fairly unknown experimental chemotherapy drug that is made from leopard frog eggs. Onconase is meant to target cancer cells and not touch the healthy surrounding cells. In the clinical trial involving 143 patients, they evaluated the addition on Onconase to doxorubicin compared to doxorubicin alone. The results showed: The survival rate was improved by 2 months with the addition of this drug (12 months for patients treated with onconase and doxorubicin versus 10 months for those treated with only doxorubin. At one year, 47% of patients treated with onconase were alive as compared to only 36% of patients treated with doxorubin only. The duration of the disease regression or stabilization of the disease was improved by seven months in the group of patients treated with onconase (17 months) as compared to those treated with doxorubicin alone (10 months). From these results, the researchers concluded that the addition of onconase to doxorubicin does improve the outcome for the mesothelioma patient as compared to treatment of doxorubicin alone. Further trials are required to better evaluate the effectiveness of this drug in the treatment of mesothelioma patients. There is expected to be a steady increase in diagnosed cases of mesothelioma patients until the year 2029. Modern medicine is scrambling to find new drugs and treatments for this patient population.
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Rick has been writing about health related topics for over 12 years. He specializes in mesothelioma and asbestos related ailments.
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