Category: Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma Patients Should be Aware Risk of Blood Clots
Pleural mesothelioma patients face a barrage of treatments and the inevitable side effects when managing their cancer. The aggressive, rare cancer of the lining of the lungs requires an equally aggressive treatment regimen to improve the survival for patients. However, mesothelioma patients should be aware of one complication of mesothelioma: blood clots.
The National Institutes of Health wants to educate people on the symptoms and dangers of deep vein thrombosis and offers steps to help patients reduce their chances of having a blood clot form in their veins. The NIH points out in its January issue of News in Health that clots can arise anywhere in your body, but the organization offers pointers in its feature article, “How to Spot and Prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis.”
“Deep vein thrombosis has classic symptoms—for example swelling, pain, warmth, and redness on the leg,” says Dr. Andrei Kindzelski, an NIH blood disease expert. “But about 30–40% of cases go unnoticed, since they don’t have typical symptoms.”
Mesothelioma patients are especially susceptible to blood clots, or deep vein thrombosis, due to the high doses of chemotherapy, limited mobility from fatigue and breathing difficulties, and the invasive surgeries that require significant time confined to a bed. Research has shown that blood clotting agents released by tumors, side effects of chemotherapy, and pre-existing health conditions such as obesity and anemia may all contribute to the development of blood clots.
Fortunately, with education, many physicians and patients are more aware of the risk, and some standard procedures have been put in place for mesothelioma patients. In a recent blog in “Nurse’s Corner,” Lisa Hyde-Barrett explains that after surgery mesothelioma patients are placed in pneumatic boots, that compress the legs to avoid blood clots; they undergo non-invasive ultrasounds of their extremities to look for any blood clots post-operatively; and they are encouraged to walk. Bed-ridden patients may be placed on an anti-coagulant subcutaneous injection to help prevent any clots. Researchers are also studying the possibility of reducing the risk of developing blood clots by adding blood thinner, such as heparin to their treatment.
Deep vein thrombosis occurs when a blood clot forms in one or more of the deep veins in your body, typically the legs. This is a serious condition because blood clots can break loose, travel through the bloodstream and lodge in the lungs, blocking blood flow, ultimately leading to death. According to the NIH article, “therapies aim to stop the blood clot from getting bigger, prevent the clot from breaking off and moving to your lungs, or reduce your chance of having another blood clot.” NIH scientists continue to research new medicines and better treatment options.
In a 2011 study, Duke University Medical Center researchers found that a serious side effect of chemotherapy may be the increased risk of blood clots. The Duke researchers found that developing a blood clot is more common among cancer patients than doctors realize. They found that as many as one in five cancer patients risk developing a blood clot within a year of receiving cancer treatments, with up to two percent of cases blood clots proving deadly.
Mesothelioma patients must be especially vigilant and can take some steps to reduce the chance of a blood clot forming in their veins. Get out of bed and move around as soon as possible after having surgery or being ill – the more active you are, the better your chance of avoiding a blood clot. Also, stay hydrated and watch out for leg swelling or leg pain. Take any medicines your doctor prescribes to prevent clots. Note that while a massage may be tempting, they are dangerous for cancer patients as they could dislodge a clot. Check with your doctor before receiving any form of massage therapy.
Discuss any concerns you may have about your mesothelioma care and your risk of blood clots with your doctor. To find out more read NIH’s January issue of News in Health.
What the Mesothelioma Commercials Don’t Tell You
If you live in the U.S., you may have learned everything you know about mesothelioma through television advertisements by law firms with the meme “If You or a Loved One Has Been Diagnosed with Mesothelioma”. Although these commercials paint a bleak picture for victims of the disease and ensure the viewers that compensation is available to them, there is still plenty more viewers should know about mesothelioma.
Facts About Mesothelioma:
- Mesothelioma is a deadly cancer caused by past exposure to asbestos. There are few effective treatments, and there is no cure.
- Most often, asbestos exposure occurred at work. Victims often worked as plumbers, pipefitters, insulators, electricians, mechanics, car mechanics and in shipyards and mills.
- Military veterans make up nearly one-third of all mesothelioma cases. Military veterans were exposed to asbestos in the barracks, on ships and in boiler rooms, among other places.
- Spouses and children of workers who brought asbestos fibers home on their clothes, shoes and hair can develop mesothelioma. This form of exposure is known as second-hand exposure and is just as lethal.
- Mesothelioma symptoms, such as pain, coughing and difficulty with breathing, develop decades after the initial asbestos exposure. It can take as long as 60 years before symptoms present themselves.
- Nearly 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year with approximately the same number losing their lives to the disease.
Compensation for Mesothelioma Victims
A complex, aggressive, and incurable disease, like mesothelioma, requiring the services of specialized doctors, complex treatments, and caregiver support can lead to excessive bills. Managing these costs is challenging and sometimes even impossible. However, compensation for physical, emotional and psychological pain and suffering may be available to mesothelioma victims.
It is important to take action to claim compensation for your asbestos disease. The time you have to make a claim begins counting down the day you are diagnosed with mesothelioma. The time limit, or statute of limitations, varies by state. In New York, for example, you have three years to file a claim.
- Military veterans: Have a legal right to claim financial compensation from the asbestos manufacturers that resulted in the illness. Veteran’s may also be eligible to file a claim with the Veteran’s Administration for compensation.
- Workers: Establishing the source of workers’ asbestos exposure will determine which asbestos company is responsible for the illness and, ultimately, responsible for compensation.
- Second Hand Exposure: Late last year, the California Supreme Court ruled that companies whose employees bring asbestos fibers home with them can be held liable in the case of an illness in a family member. This helps ensure that these mesothelioma victims receive compensation just as those workers or veterans who were at the source of the asbestos are eligible.
Lawyers Can Help You Make Financial Claims
You should find a lawyer who is compassionate and knowledgeable and with whom you feel comfortable enough to get you the best compensation.
If you want to make a claim for VA benefits, understanding the process and working through all the red tape can be daunting. Securing a lawyer can give you the best results.
Your health should be your biggest concern, and Mesothelioma Help encourages those diagnosed with mesothelioma to first research all possible treatment options and seek out mesothelioma specialists for the best care.
To better understand the cancer and how to move forward, get free a Patient’s Guide to Mesothelioma from the New York Mesothelioma law firm of Belluck & Fox, LLP.
- Find out about your treatment options and typical prognosis.
- Use the handy reference for your medical and legal questions.
- Use the personal journal to track your treatments and other important information
Anyone who has been diagnosed with mesothelioma should understand that they are a victim. Mesothelioma does not just happen to you, it is caused by the negligence of companies. They should be held responsible for your illness and should compensate you for the illness they caused.
Anti-Cancer Drug Found Effective in Rare Cancers Could Be Used as Mesothelioma Treatment
The ability to halt the growth of mesothelioma cancer cells, and to kill the cells, often relies on finding a drug that can inhibit the cells’ ability to communicate. Cells communicate via complex signalling pathways, and finding the right one to focus on can mean the difference in survival in patients. Now, researchers report that the Notch signalling pathway may be the key to stopping cancer growth in rare cancers, such as mesothelioma.
Patients with a wide range of cancers who had mutations of the Notch protein were selected for a study conducted by researchers from the Institut Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus in France. They focused on the Notch signalling pathway because of its role in driving cancer cells to grow, divide, and spread throughout the body. In addition, they report the Notch pathway plays a role in growth of new blood vessels that feed tumor growth and helps cancers become chemo-resistant. The pathway uses four Notch proteins that transfer messages across the cell membrane.
Expert Insight
Dr. Christophe Massard
“One of the interesting results with implications for some patients is that the drug was active against rare cancers such as adenoid cystic carcinoma.”
When the patients in the Phase I clinical trial were given LY3039478, a novel and potent Notch inhibitor, some of the patients experienced tumor shrinkage, disease stabilization and no further progression. These results were also seen in the rare cancer, adenoid cystic carcinoma.
“The results from this phase I trial prove that LY3039478 has the effect on tumours that was expected, by inhibiting the Notch signalling and thereby preventing cancer cell growth and proliferation,” said Dr. Christophe Massard, senior medical oncology consultant and chair of the Early Drug Development program at Gustave Roussy.
Pleural mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer caused by exposure to airborne asbestos fibers. The cancer, that affects just 3,000 Americans each year, is highly aggressive and is resistant to many current treatments. Care often follows the same protocol as lung cancer. Currently, there is no known cure for mesothelioma, but research such as this brings hope to the mesothelioma community that an effective treatment is on the horizon.
The trial results were presented at the 28th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Munich, Germany.
Mesothelioma Nurse Thinks That Laughter Can Be the Best Medicine
“Laughter is the best medicine.” The origin of this quote is thought to be the Old Testament Proverbs 17:22, “A joyful heart is good medicine. But a broken spirit dries up the bones.” The role of laughter in helping people feel better has long been held to be true. When dealing with mesothelioma and all the treatments, there is often not much to laugh about. Patients are told to remain positive, but this is often very difficult.
How important is a good, hearty laugh? According to research, laughter can affect us both physically and emotionally. Physically, laughter can increase our intake of oxygen, stimulates our heart, lung and muscles, and increases the endorphins released by the brain. Laughter can give you a relaxed feeling by activating your stress response and soothing tension by stimulating circulation and reducing some of the physical symptoms of stress.
One of the most important effects of a good laugh is on the immune system. The important role that the immune system plays in health and disease is being explored and there are many opportunities for targeting the immune system for future treatment of diseases. Laughter helps the immune system by releasing neuropeptides that help fight stress. Laughter can also relieve pain by causing the body to produce its own natural painkillers.
Author Norman Cousins, in his book “Anatomy of an Illness,” noted that 10 minutes of laughter, watching a funny movie or TV show, allowed him two hours of pain-free sleep.
A study from the University of Kentucky showed that in a group of women who laughed at a funny movie, those who had laughed out loud had higher levels of natural killer cell activity to help fight diseases, compared to the group who quietly watched.
There isn’t too much downside to laughing. The diagnosis of mesothelioma is not a laughing matter, but trying to find the humor in certain situations can help your overall physical and mental health.
As Dick Van Dyke sang in Mary Poppins, “I love to laugh, loud and long and clear. I love to laugh it’s getting worse every year. The more I laugh the more I fill with glee, and the more the glee, the more I am a merrier me.”
Know more about Mesothelioma and how you can deal with it.
Researchers Identify Proteins to Target to Increase Sensitivity of Mesothelioma and Lung Cancer Treatments
As MesotheliomaHelp has reported countless times before, researchers focus much of their time on biomarkers in mesothelioma and lung cancer patients to help increase the effectiveness of treatment. By targeting the unique characteristics of a patient’s cancer the researchers aim to increase survival. Now, researchers believe ALK, a key gene often targeted with anti-cancer drugs, can be more effective when other proteins are also targeted.
Everyone has the abnormal anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene in their cells, but when a part of it breaks off and reattaches in the wrong way, it becomes an abnormal ALK gene leading to out of control cell growth and ALK-positive lung cancer. By blocking the action of the abnormal ALK gene, crizotinib (Xalkori), an ALK-inhibitor, may shrink or slow the growth of tumors, according to Pfizer, the makers or Xalkori. However, some tumors do not respond to the drug or develop resistance to it.
Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center focused on increasing the sensitivity of lung cancer tumors to ALK inhibitors. The team turned to proteomics to allow a large scale review of proteins so they could “identify potential drug targets that could boost ALK inhibitors and improve patient outcomes”, according to an Oct. 19 article in Medical News Today.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/313580.php
They found a host of proteins, 64 of them, could be used to increase sensitivity to crizotinib, and nine of them could do the same for alectinib, another ALK-inhibitor. They eventually narrowed the list down to two “adaptor proteins FRS2 and CC2D1A” that can increase the sensitivity of lung cancers to ALK inhibitors.
“Knocking down either of these two proteins, the scaffolding proteins FRS2 and CC2D1A, sensitized cell lines to the ALK inhibitors crizotinib and alectinib,” wrote the researchers. “Thus, a clinical strategy that inhibits FRS2 or CC2D1A might enhance the efficacy of ALK inhibitors in some patients.”
Crizotinib, or Xalkori from Pfizer, is intended for the treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) in patients who express the abnormal anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene. Approximately 3%-5% of people with NSCLC may test positive for the ALK fusion gene. There is a potential that the marker is also present in certain pleural mesothelioma cases making it a target for treatment.
Pleural mesothelioma is a rare form of lung cancer that invades the outer lining of the lungs called the mesothelium. The only known cause of mesothelioma is through inhalation or ingestion of airborne asbestos fibers. Both NSCLC and mesothelioma are aggressive cancers following equally aggressive, and similar, treatment protocols.
“Collectively, our data set provides a resource that enhances our understanding of signaling and drug resistance networks consequent to ALK fusions and identifies potential targets to improve the efficacy of ALK inhibitors in patients,” concluded the researchers.
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For the full study see the Oct. 18 issue of Science Signaling.
http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/9/450/rs12
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