Mesothelioma Growth Slowed By Cholesterol Reducing Drug

Despite all efforts by medical researchers around the world, mesothelioma has so far proven to be extremely resistant to most conventional asbestosis treatments.Most often it's a combination of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which seems to be the only consistent method capable of extending a patient's survival rate beyond an expected prognosis of 4 to 12 months. As knowledge and technology has improved, so too the techniques employed, which often include a wide variety of unusual approaches to treatment.

Treatment using herpes virus

Sometimes treatments evolve either from research being undertaken on other types of cancer, or an investigation into new adapted forms of surgery, medication or radiotherapy. Other branches of research will try to develop new genetic protein / cell or virus behaviour techniques.Recent UK research has begun testing a laboratory engineered herpes virus designed to kill mesothelioma tumours, intended for use in patients who cannot tolerate traditional chemotherapy treatments. While a small group of 12 mesothelioma patients are being studied, the virus is also to be used in testing its effectiveness with overcoming brain and liver cancers.At the same time, research is currently being conducted in Japan into the use of statin drugs to slow the growth of mesothelioma and induce cancer-cell death.

New statin drug combination

Statin drugs are already used in the treatment of breast cancer and are commonly prescribed for patients who are at risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases to reduce the body's cholesterol level. In addition, previous studies have shown that patients with a history of using statin drugs had a significantly lower risk of dying from cancer as a result of reduced tumour growth and the blocking of cancer-causing cellular functions.New laboratory tests using a combination of statin drugs and an 'engineered' form of vitamin E, showed for the first time that the growth of mesothelioma can be slowed down and cancer-cell death induced at a significantly greater level than a single treatment.While the researchers point out that the laboratory studies of the statin-protein combination requires extensive further testing before official approval may be given, it is hoped that they will be used as a "complementary" treatment for malignant mesothelioma therapy.

According to a report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) the incidence of mesothelioma is on the rise. Between 1994 and 2008, more than 6,000 deaths were caused by mesothelioma each year, worldwide - a total of more than 92,200, two-thirds of which, occurred since the year 2000.