According to the CRCH web site, the Center was originally a part of the Pacific Biomedical Reserach Center before becoming a freestanding independent institute in 1981.

Carbone was selected to head the Center by the university’s Board of Regents, which is comprised of 15 board members, the Chronicle reports. According to the news story, Carbone was elected to a three-year term, and began his new position Sept. 1, 2009. He had previously served as interim director beginning in December 2008 when the Center’s previous director resigned.

According to the Chronicle, Dr. Carbone is “deemed an authority on malignant mesothelioma, a rare cancer related to asbestos exposure. Dr. Carbone and his team have comprehensively studied the impact of genetics, environmental carcinogens and viral infections on mesothelioma development and have subsequently worked to develop preventative and therapeutic treatments.”

An October 2008 story about Carbone published by MidWeek, an Oahu-based publishing company, noted that the physician previously discovered that many people who develop mesothelioma are genetically predisposed to developing the cancer. He and his team conducted extensive studies in Turkey, near the small village of Cappadocia.

Dr. Carbone is the recipient of the 2008-2010 Landon Foundation-AACR (American Association for Cancer Reserach) INNOVATOR Award for International Collaboration in Cancer Reserach for his project, Gene Environment Interaction and Early Detection of Mesothelioma in Cappadocia, Turkey.

SOURCE: myMeso › Mesothelioma researcher to head Hawaii cancer center

The results are based on a study of 409 patients, mostly from the United Kingdom, which set out to assess the potential benefits of combining active symptom control, which usually involves steroid drugs and radiotherapy, with chemotherapy. Results showed no real benefit from adding the chemotherapy drugs compared with just treating the symptoms of the disease.

The BBC quotes one of the authors of the study, Dr Richard Stephens from the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit, as saying, “While thousands are and will be affected by this deadly disease, our trial, which is one of the few large trials ever conducted in this disease, emphasizes how difficult mesothelioma is to treat. This is mainly because mesothelioma forms in the lining of the lung. This makes it hard to target.”

One chemotherapy drug, vinorelbine, was shown by the study to have some promise, but researchers do not think blanket chemotherapy treatment is a promising direction for treatment of mesothelioma, according to the Lancet report.

Researchers do not necessarily consider these findings to be bad news, as a study that defines what does not help can be beneficial to patient health because it helps reduce the chance that patients will undergo stressful treatments that are ineffective.

Results of a completely different chemotherapy study conducted by researchers at Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center were released May 18, revealing that chemotherapy given in conjunction with cancer vaccines may actually boost the immune system’s response to the vaccines, according to a report by ScienceDaily.

The Duke study focused on a drug used to treat lymphoma, but could have implications for clinical trials with vaccines being used to treat many cancers including lung cancer, brain tumors and colorectal cancer.

According to the FDA, it is the goal of cancer vaccine clinical trials not to prevent cancer, but to treat existing tumors. The idea is to train the person’s immune system to recognize the living cancer cells and attack them.

In July 2007, the American Association for Cancer Research examined the issue of cancer vaccines and, according to a report by Medical News Today, they found that “ongoing therapeutic cancer vaccine trials have yet to show evidence of vaccines spurring a patient’s immune system to shrink tumors – yet patients who receive these vaccines in trials tend to live longer and respond better to subsequent treatment.”

The full study, titled Cancer Vaccines: Moving Beyond Current Paradigms is available to read online at Clinical Cancer Research.

Full results of the Duke study will be presented May 31 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, Ill.

SOURCE: myMeso › Mesothelioma and chemotherapy research

The study was based on the fact that because mesothelioma initially progresses on the surface of the pleura and peritoneum without forming masses, it has been difficult to diagnose at an early stage, so it would be useful to identify a tumor marker that would help in identifying it.

Researchers had previously identified N-ERC/mesothelin as a potential biomarker for mesothelioma. The recent study used a newly developed ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) system to gather data in clinical trials.

The report states that 102 healthy volunteers were recruited for the study, as well 39 patients diagnosed with mesothelioma, 53 patients diagnosed with diseases that should be distinguished from mesothelioma, and 201 subjects diagnosed with asbestos-related nonmalignant diseases.

The findings show that N-ERC/mesothelin is a “very promising tumor marker for mesothelioma, especially epithelioid mesothelioma.” Serum N-ERC/mesothelin levels showed that the median values from patients with mesothelioma were extremely high compared with levels from other patients.

Researchers participating in the study represented Juntendo University School of Medicine, National Organization Tokyo Hospital, Fukujuji Hospital, Hirano Kameido Himawari Clinic, Immuno-Biological Laboratories Co., Ltd., Hyogo Prefectural Tsukaguchi Hospital, Yokosuka Kyosai Hospital, St. Marianna University School of Medicine, and Tohoku University Hospital.

SOURCE: myMeso › Study may lead to early Meso diagnosis