New Hope for Mesothelioma Treatment

A new treatment protocol for mesothelioma has yielded impressive results in the first patient of a Nashville-based clinic, NeoPlas Innovation.

The patient, a woman aged 40+ who caught mesothelioma for being exposed to asbestos in her childhood, underwent this new treatment, when standard treatments for mesothelioma couldn’t stop or slow the progression of her cancer.

Introduced by NeoPlas Innovation, the new mesothelioma treatment protocol, where interferon and lovastatin were used in combination, led to a significant clinical improvement in the patient, and the cancer got stabilized. CT scans revealed that the largest of the tumors had substantially regressed in size.

The same treatment protocol has also yielded promising results in combating various other aggressive cancers, researchers noted.

“These are early results from one patient, so no conclusions can be drawn yet,” says, in a press release, Dr. Stephen B. Cantrell, director of research at NeoPlas Innovation, adding, “Mesothelioma is so relentless and uniformly fatal, though, that being able to stop its growth and spread is very exciting.”

Lovastatin, a drug used for reducing lipid level in humans, has significant effects against mesothelioma cells, according to the previous research. Keeping this in account, researchers at the NeoPlas Innovation introduced a precisely timed regimen for mesothelioma, by combining lovastatin with low-dose interferon.

The new mesothelioma treatment was well tolerated, and the only adverse reaction found after the treatment was fatigue, the researchers noted.

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New Drug To Curb Smoking

Have you been trying to quit smoking for quite some time? Are you tired of testing scores of remedies—which include nicotine patches and n number of herbal cocktails—without any effect?

Well, you may finally have some really effective drug that may help you kick the habit. Research has shown that varenicline tartrate - a novel new drug specifically developed for smoking cessation - allows smokers to abstain from cigarettes significantly longer and more effectively than smokers using a placebo.

A paper in Respirology compared the efficacy of a standard 12-week regimen of varenicline for smoking cessation with a placebo on 333 subjects in 15 test sites across China, Singapore and Thailand.

"The smoking cessation rate achieved after the treatment period and the follow-up period was significantly higher with varenicline than with placebo. Likewise, the long-term quit rate for smokers treated with varenicline was also significantly higher", said Dr. Chen Wang from the Beijing Institute of Respiratory Medicine, in a press release.

More than half of the smokers from the varenicline group abstained from cigarettes within the treatment period while 38 per cent continued to abstain for the next 12 weeks after the
treatment. The abstinence rate for the placebo group was significantly lower with only 31 per cent of the participants managing to abstain during the treatment period and 25 per cent for the non-treatment period.

Varenicline tartrate is a selective nicotinic acetylcholine receptor which is licensed in Europe, the USA and Japan. This study further evaluates and establishes the efficacy, tolerability and safety profiles of varenicline in Asian smokers.

So get ready to tread happily in more and more ‘no smoking’ zones.

Journal reference:
Varenicline for smoking cessation: a placebo-controlled, randomized study. Respirology, April 2009, Vol. 14, Issue 3

Adapted from materials provided by Wiley, via AlphaGalileo

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