A class of relatively new mesothelioma treatments provides patients with a new set of alternatives for controlling symptoms.

Mesothelioma is a cancer of the pleura, the double-layered membrane between the lungs and the interior chest wall.

It typically takes as much as 30 years or more to develop to the point at which it can be discovered and diagnosed. Within the U.S., the only known cause of mesothelioma is asbestos exposure.

Because of mesothelioma’s long development period, cases of mesothelioma diagnosed today may have been caused by asbestos exposure many decades ago, even before new legal restrictions on asbestos use went into place in the 1970s.

And even since then, some asbestos still remains in use. Not all uses of asbestos have been completely banned, and asbestos materials already in place before restrictions were passed may presumably be left in place as long as they are not in danger of being physically disturbed.

Sadly, mesothelioma is typically fatal within a few years of diagnosis, and often within just a few months. Mesothelioma treatments can’t cure the disease, but they can help relieve symptoms.

New Mesothelioma Treatments Work on Mesothelin

As with other types of cancer, mesothelioma can be treated using surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Newer treatments have been developed that take advantage of a particular protein associated with metastatic mesothelioma to increase the effectiveness of more traditional treatments.

These new mesothelioma treatments operate in different ways on the glycoprotein mesothelin. Mesothelin is a cell-surface protein that appears more frequently when mesothelioma is malignant. It can also appear in malignancies of several other types of cancer.

As a diagnostic indicator, mesothelin is considered the “gold standard” for diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma.

But according to researchers, mesothelin also has value as a marker for cells to be targeted by mesothelioma treatments. Mesothelin is produced by particular cells in the membranes that are affected by mesothelioma. These cells are considered expendable – meaning that destroying them using targeted drugs will not harm vital organs.

A review recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology offers an overview of these mesothelin-based treatments. Researchers from the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research catalog several new developments in the treatment of mesothelioma.

One group of these treatments function as immunotoxins, targeting the cells that express mesothelin. Clinical studies of some of these drugs show they can have a significant effect in fighting tumors.

Antibodies that target mesothelin can also be effective. One such antibody, amatuximab, shows potential for boosting the effectiveness of standard chemotherapy and is a candidate for being used on its own as a first-line treatment for mesothelioma.

Some other, more novel-sounding mesothelioma therapies also show promise, such as a vaccine that can stimulate the body’s own immune system to respond to mesothelin.

Another new drug developed from live bacteria makes mesothelioma cells vulnerable to attack from the body’s own immune system. A clinical trial of this drug reports that using it in conjunction with standard mesothelioma chemotherapy produced a 90 percent disease control rate.