New Mesothelioma Treatments – Keeping Hope Alive!
September 3rd, 2008Any form of cancer does not only affect the person diagnosed, but the family also. Every year more than two thousand people are diagnosed with mesothelioma, one of the most dreaded diseases that is linked to inhalation of asbestos dust and fibers. This disease lies dormant hiding itself for many years or even decades before revealing its dark face, by which time it is often too late to do anything about it. The most unfortunate aspect of this disease is that it is often misdiagnosed because it has symptoms that are similar to other diseases and certain types of lung cancer.
Over the years, science has advanced tremendously but there have not been many breakthroughs in research and many clinical trials underway currently, for the diagnosis and treatment of mesothelioma.
Dr. Anton Berns from The Netherlands Cancer Institute says, “There is an urgent need for experimental models of malignant mesothelioma that can be used to not only study the onset and progression of the disease, but also to serve as a model to select new combination therapies and targeted agents.”
This is precisely the reason why the results of the latest test conducted by the Columbia University Medical Center and Rosetta Genomics Ltd. is being hailed as a major breakthrough, especially for people suffering from this form of cancer. Researchers say that now they can differentiate between lung cancers of two forms, squamous and the non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Read the rest of this entry »
