In April 2009, the Asian Asbestos Conference (AAC 2009) was held in Hong Kong. This landmark event accelerated the ban asbestos debate in China, the world’s largest asbestos user. New contacts were made and conduits developed with campaigners working in China on issues relating to occupational and environmental health. As a result of the discussions and demonstrations held in Hon Kong, the Asian Ban Asbestos Network (A-BAN) was formed.

Drug developer Bionomics Ltd plans to conduct a Phase II clinical trial of its leading compound, anti-cancer drug BNC105, on 60 Mesothelioma patients in Australia next year.

According to the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, DOE construction workers have an increased risk of certain cancers. In fact, the most significant finding at Hanford was a very high rate of mesothelioma, a cancer of the protective lining that covers most of the body’s internal organs.

Researchers from the North Carolina State University, The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences used a mouse model to examine the effect of inhalation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes on the lungs.

Prometheus Laboratories Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical and diagnostic company, today announced the nationwide commercial launch of three new cancer diagnostic products: ProOnc TumorSourceDx, ProOnc SquamousDx and ProOnc MesotheliomaDx. Each of these tests is based on recently developed, highly sensitive microRNA technology.

Purpose: Malignant pleural mesotheliomas (MPMs) are tumours associated with asbestos exposure involving the tissue lining surrounding the lung. Radiation therapy (RT) dramatically reduces the risk of tumour recurrence within the irradiated area (>90%). But patients continue to succumb to MPMs due to the tumour spreading outside the chest cavity. This may be due to tumour cells inadvertently contaminating areas outside the chest cavity during surgery. The study will look at whether giving a short intense course of chest radiation just prior to surgery will sterilized these tumour cells and thus, avoid or reduce contamination of the areas outside the chest cavity. The investigators hypothesize that short neoadjuvant (pre-operative) hemithoracic RT, followed by immediate planned extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) (+/- adjuvant chemotherapy) will reduce the risk of intra-operative seeding and reduce the incidence of distant metastatic disease.

PINEHURST – The FirstHealth of the Carolinas Clinical Trials Department has partnered with the Wake Forest School of Medicine to promote participation in a research study investigating the development and progression of asbestos-related lung diseases and cancers.

Before she dies, Dorothy Kuykendall wants her day in court. The 76-year-old from Terre Haute was exposed to asbestos, a toxin that can lead to a deadly cancer called mesothelioma, more than three decades ago when she handled the material regularly as a worker at the city’s Glas-Col Apparatus Co.

World Health Organization continues to condemn the use of toxic chrysotile asbestos and the mining of the lethal substance while Quebec actively mines the cancer causing product.

Canadian provinces continue to allow LAB Chrysotile to mine asbestos materials known to cause fatal cancers, such as mesothelioma.

The family of a man who died of asbestos exposure from his work on a Navy ship won reinstatement of their claims against the makers of the vessel’s steam valves and pumps, in a California appeals court.