Most of the recent publications concerning malignant mesothelioma involve clinical trials of palliative chemotherapy carried out in referral centers. However, the demographics of such referral patients may not represent the entire population of patients presenting with mesothelioma in the community at large.

The current study looked at all the patients with mesothelioma in a population of 750,000 during a four-year period between 2001 and 2005. These authors identified 146 cases of mesothelioma with the following characteristics:

* 77% were male, and the median age was 74 years (36-93).
* 63% had a performance status of 2 or better at diagnosis.
* The median survival from diagnosis was nine months.
* 75% of patients had symptomatic pleural effusion at the time of diagnosis.
* 42 patients had a surgical resection with a recurrence rate of 14%.
* 73 patients received radiation therapy.
* Seven patients, six of whom had received radiation therapy, developed biopsy tract invasion.
* 54 patients were considered eligible for chemotherapy but 28 declined treatment.
* Overall entry into a clinical trial or treatment with chemotherapy was 18%.

These authors suggested that patients with mesothelioma were presenting at an older age with worse performance scores than previously reported. They suggested that 37% were suitable for palliative chemotherapy but less than 20% accepted. They suggested that thorascopic pleurodesis was associated with a relatively low recurrence rate. Radiation did not appear to prevent biopsy tract recurrence.

Source: http://professional.cancerconsultants.com

The use of asbestos half a century ago has triggered an epidemic that will kill 200,000 people in Britain through lung cancer and mesothelioma, an untreatable cancer of the mesothelium, a thin membrane that lines the chest.

The disease can develop up to 60 years after exposure to asbestos. Around 3,500 die each year as a result to exposure before its use was banned. Most die from cancer but another 200 succumb to the breathing difficulties of asbestosis.

Now a drug that can may eventually help protect those who have been exposed has resulted from a study, published in Science, that for the first time explains how the fibres lead to the chronic lung inflammation that causes cancer.

Prof Jürg Tschopp of the University of Lausanne and colleagues in Europe and the United States report that the inflammation is linked to a complex of proteins, known as the Nalp3 inflammasome.

This protein complex is also involved in other inflammatory processes such as gout, which can be treated with a drug called Anakinra.

Now the team believes that this same drug may also be useful for slowing the progression of asbestosis, silicosis or other lung diseases linked with inhaling mineral fibres.

Asbestosis is the scarring of lung tissue resulting from the chronic inflammation triggered by the particles, which in turn makes the lung less efficient and breathing more difficult.

“Because exposure to asbestos increases not only the risk of asbestosis, but also lung cancer, mesothelioma, and other uncurable cancers, this suggested new treatment is highly desirable,” says Prof Tschopp.

He said that use of Anakinra would be used for prevention and not a cure. “Rather persons exposed to asbestos in the past and thus at high risk to get asbestosis or lung cancer could be treated with an inhibitor drug.”

Given the success of treating gout this way, “we are therefore quite optimistic that the same treatment will work for asbestosis.”

“We have not started yet, but I am sure that somewhere in the world clinicians will.”

Dr Joanna Owens, Cancer Research UK senior scientific officer, comments: “This important laboratory research brings us a step closer to understanding how asbestos causes the chronic inflammation that can lead to cancer.

“These results should help scientists find better ways to treat people who have been exposed to asbestos in the past. But Anakinra will need thorough testing in clinical trials before we’ll know if it’s safe and effective at preventing asbestos-related cancers.”

The Greeks termed asbestos the “miracle mineral” because of its soft and pliant properties, as well as its ability to withstand heat.

Asbestos became increasingly popular among manufacturers and builders in the late 19th century due to its resistance to heat, electricity and chemical damage, its sound absorption and tensile strength.

Asbestos was used, for example, in brake shoes for its heat resistance, and in buildings for its flame-retardant and insulating properties, tensile strength, flexibility, and resistance to chemicals.

When it was found that inhalation of asbestos fibres caused serious illnesses, including asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, most uses of asbestos have been banned in many countries since the mid 1980s.

Experts have warned that carpenters and builders exposed in the 1960s and ’70s faced a grim future as the incidence of mesothelioma was still rising.

Overall, 30,000 Britons have already died of the disease since 1970, and another 60,000 are expected to die over the next 40 years, mainly because asbestos was used extensively as a building material from the 1950s to the mid-1980s.

Around one man in every 150 born in the 1940s - the highest risk group - will be killed by the disease, unless this kind of novel approach pays off.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Madison, Wis. - Is there cause for concern at Madison-based Quintessence Bioscience? After all, Alfacell Corp., an East Coast biotech competitor, just finished its second Phase III trial of a new class of anti-cancer therapy that is very similar to what is being developed at Quintessence, which has not even begun clinical trials on its lead candidate.

If the folks at Quintessence are worried about being behind Alfacell, it doesn’t show.

Both Laura Strong, president and chief operating officer, and Ralph Kauten, chairman and CEO, are very excited over the developments at Alfacell. Both believe that success at Alfacell will help validate the novel anti-cancer therapy under development at Quintessence. It also will help attract interest from investors as well as smooth the regulatory hurdles that all new technologies face.

Kauten, in fact, believes that Alfacell’s progress is a “great boon” for Quintessence. In other words, Alfacell is paving the way for Quintessence, but can Quintessence really reap some of the largesse of Alfacell’s success?

Novel anti-cancer therapy

The novel therapies being developed by both companies target RNA in cancer cells. While current anti-cancer therapies mostly target either the DNA or specific proteins in cancer cells, RNA, which is produced by the genes and then directs the production of a cell’s proteins, is an untapped target for killing cancer cells.

Both companies are developing therapeutic ribonucleases (RNases), which are ubiquitous enzymes that destroy RNA. RNases are important in regulating gene expression in normal cells, where their activity is tightly regulated in order to protect against indiscriminate destruction of RNA that would cause unwanted cell death. However, researchers, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Ronald Raines, discovered that RNases from non-human species sometimes are not regulated inside human cells and can cause cell death.

Surprisingly, cancer cells are much more susceptible than normal cells to foreign RNases. Alfacell is taking advantage of the anti-cancer activity of an RNase purified from frog eggs - named Onconase. Meanwhile, Quintessence used genetic engineering to create a designer RNase, QBI-139, that is 95 percent human, but like the frog enzyme, it kills human cancer cells.

Studies have shown that both Onconase and QBI-139 kill a wide range of different human cancer types while sparing normal cells. Thus, these RNases offer an exciting potential to broadly treat different types of cancers, which is in distinct contrast to many other experimental therapies that narrowly target only certain types of cancer. The market potential of RNase therapy could be huge.

At this point, the anti-cancer effects of Onconase have been reported on about 300 patients with different types of cancer. Most of the data reported so far are for patients with malignant mesothelioma, a rare lung cancer that is very difficult to treat. In the first phase III trial, the most advanced cases of mesothelioma were not responsive to Onconase, but the drug did increase the life span of patients with less advanced cancer.

Alfacell will soon report the results of its just-completed phase III confirmatory trial for treating mesothelioma. Presumably, this trial focuses on treating patients with less advanced disease, so it stands a good chance of showing encouraging results.

It is interesting that in recent weeks, Alfacell has entered marketing and distribution agreements for commercializing Onconase in the U.S., Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia. The company seems quite optimistic that Onconase soon will be widely approved as an orphan drug for treating mesothelioma.

The Quintessence advantage

So why doesn’t all of this discourage folks at Quintessence? First, the science behind QBI-139 is very strong and it promises to have significant advantages over Onconase. In clinical studies, frog-derived Onconase caused allergic reactions in some patients and was poorly cleared by the kidneys, causing dose-limiting problems. In contrast, since QBI-139 is an engineered gene product that is 95 percent human, it therefore is unlikely to cause allergic or other immune problems.

Also, as Strong pointed out, animal studies reveal that QBI-139 is much less toxic than Onconase, which will allow greater dosing flexibility. Finally, QBI-139 reportedly is about 100 times more enzymatically active than Onconase. Together, these facts indicate that QBI-139 should be an efficient and flexible therapy that stands a very good chance of yielding more impressive clinical results than Onconase.

Quintessence also is developing a second generation QBI-139 product that remains longer in the blood stream, meaning that it has enhanced opportunity to attack cancer cells throughout the body. Strong is very excited about this product and recently submitted a second-level Small Business Innovation Research application to the National Institutes of Health in order to continue development of this product.

“Things are really working well,” she said.

At this point, QBI-139 is being produced for use in a Phase I clinical trial anticipated to begin this summer and end sometime in 2009. Indications are that this trial will be conducted at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center.

What’s next?

Assuming that Quintessence’s Phase I trials yield encouraging results, what do they do next?

Kauten opined that it would be “hard to develop a new cancer company in Wisconsin. Obviously, we’ll need to partner and probably before Phase II (trials).”

The unspoken sentiment was that Wisconsin does not have the infrastructure needed to take a successful therapeutic drug from a mid-research stage to the market.

This highlights an unfortunate problem that hinders Wisconsin’s desire to become a major player in the biotech arena. If good biotech ideas, for which there are quite a few in Wisconsin, cannot sustain development beyond early clinical trials, much less be produced and marketed here, then Wisconsin simply becomes an incubator for West and East coast concerns. Ideas are born and tested here, but brought to fruition there.

Quintessence’s Phase II trials could begin in 2009, which means that the company stands a good chance of forming a partnership with a pharma company in the not-too-distant future. Quintessence’s success will cause it to look beyond Wisconsin’s borders.

Source: http://wistechnology.com

CHILDREN at a Leeds primary school are sitting on toilet seats made from asbestos.

The revelation came during an inquest into the death of Gordon Gomersall, left, a former teacher from the school, who developed the fatal condition asbestosis – or mesothelioma – last summer.

The cancer is caused by inhaling particles of asbestos which can stay dormant in a victim’s lungs for decades before a tumour is triggered.

Now his widow is calling for asbestos to be removed from all city schools.

A letter from Leeds City Council read out to Leeds Coroner’s Court said that some asbestos removal at Templenewsam Halton Primary School, where Mr Gomersall taught for 20 years, took place in the late 1970s. But a safety survey in June 2005 said there was still asbestos in the school built in 1944 including toilet seats, cisterns, ceiling and floor tiles.

These were deemed ‘low risk’ and not removed but abestos found in the boiler house and caretaker’s store were a ‘medium risk’ and the areas cleaned.

Today the widow of Mr Gomersall, who died just two months after he was diagnosed with a tumour in his chest last July, called for asbestos to be removed from all schools in the city.
Barbara Gomersall, 72, from Crossgates, told the YEP: “If such a miniscule particle of asbestos is so dangerous and can lie 40 years or more before activating and causing such a horrendous death, surely it’s time that all this so-called low risk asbestos is completely eradicated.”
At the inquest Leeds Deputy Coroner Robert Chapman said Mr Gomersall had been exposed to asbestos somewhere which caused his cancer. He recorded an open verdict, saying there was “no clear” evidence that it definitely happened to the father-of-two while he was at the school.
Mrs Gomersall, who was an infant teacher at the school, told the court that her husband worked there most of his career before taking early retirement. She added that before his death the couple went through his life and couldn’t think of anywhere else that the 77-year-old, who taught general studies from 1960 to 1979, might have come into contact with the deadly dust.
Tim Hales, health & safety advisor for the Leeds National Union of Teachers (NUT), said: “The NUT is campaigning and lobbying the Government and local authorities to get asbestos removed from all schools.

“Our latest figures show nationally there were an average of 22 teacher deaths a year from mesothelioma in the period 2002-2005. In the three year period before that it was 14 per year.
“Obviously our concern is that not only could our members and other school workers be exposed to asbestos dust, but also children.”

An Education Leeds spokeswoman said that asbestos did not pose a risk unless it was damaged and exposed.

She added: “We take the safety of school buildings very seriously and have a programme of asbestos surveying work whereby frequent checks are carried out at all our schools.

“We also ensure every school has a plan in place for monitoring any asbestos identified in the checks and to ensure that it is sealed and safe.”

Source: http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk

Evelyn Holmes’ husband Leonard died in November 2006 from the asbestos-related condition mesothelioma.

The aggressive and incurable cancer, the only known cause of which is exposure to asbestos, has killed hundreds of former shipyard workers, claiming more lives per head in Barrow than anywhere else in the UK. Mr Holmes, who lived in Barrow town centre, was exposed to the deadly asbestos fibres throughout his working life.

Between 1947 and 1949 he worked for the British Railways Board, cleaning locomotives in its Barrow depot.

The pipework and firebox which Mr Holmes had to clean were lagged with asbestos insulation, which, when disturbed, created the asbestos dust to which he was exposed.

From 1975 to 1993 Mr Holmes was employed as a labourer by Vickers-Armstrong in the Barrow shipyard.

During this time he worked mainly with plumbers on pipework throughout the ships.

There was asbestos lagging on pipes and old lagging that had fallen to the floor which created asbestos dust when disturbed, to which Mr Holmes was also exposed.

He was never given any warning of the danger of working with asbestos and never provided with any protective clothing or equipment.

Lucy Proctor, a solicitor at personal injury firm Irwin Mitchell, who is representing Mrs Holmes, said: “Mesothelioma is a devastating form of cancer which affects the lining of the lung.

“It is typically associated with occupational exposure to asbestos dust in industry and affects over 1,800 people per year in the UK alone. Mr Holmes was exposed to asbestos even though it was known that it could cause injury and we are seeking justice for his family.

“Mr Holmes suffered substantial exposure to asbestos dust, but mesothelioma can develop as a result of slight exposure and it is not always associated with industry.

“It is important that anyone diagnosed with an asbestos-related condition who may have been exposed through their work seeks legal advice.”

Source: http://www.nwemail.co.uk

By Andrea K. Walker and Paul Adams | Sun reporters
9:00 PM EDT, April 7, 2008

W.R. Grace & Co. said Monday that it has reached a deal that could be worth more than $3 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits by people who say they were sickened by exposure to the company’s asbestos products.

The deal potentially clears a path for the Columbia-based chemicals maker to emerge by year’s end from one of the most complex bankruptcy reorganizations in U.S. history.

The accord, which would depend on approval by a bankruptcy judge in Pittsburgh, would establish a trust fund to pay current and future asbestos claims, which date back decades to when the company produced and sold products containing the substance.

Grace, which employs 6,500 people in 40 countries, sought bankruptcy protection in 2001 after being confronted by thousands of such claims.

“It’s a significant recovery, but certainly not enough,” said John D. Cooney, an attorney who helped negotiate the deal for victims. “In the final analysis, nothing will really compensate for people who lose their husbands or wives.”

Cooney put the value of the settlement at more than $3 billion when cash, stock warrants, insurance payments and other elements are factored in.

Grace executives said they could not put a dollar figure on the deal because the company will make payments over many years.

In a conference call with analysts, Grace Chairman Fred Festa said the agreement allows the company to “once and for all” determine its asbestos liability, which consultants hired by the company and claimants had previously estimated at $385 million to $6.2 billion.

Uncertainty over the lawsuits and restrictions placed on the company in bankruptcy have hampered its growth for years. Grace faced 110,000 claims when it declared bankruptcy.

“It will take all further encumbrances away from us,” Festa said during a phone interview Monday afternoon. “A lot of the things we do have to get court approval. Now we can focus on one thing, and that’s making the best products for our customers.”

The claims against Grace stem from asbestos in the company’s building materials and fire-protection products before 1973. Asbestos is known to cause lung cancer and mesothelioma, a lethal tumor of the lining of the chest and abdominal cavities.

Grace also mined and processed asbestos-containing vermiculite — a substance used in insulation, potting soil and fertilizer — in Libby, Mont., for 27 years. Much of the town was contaminated and many of its residents died or became sick with asbestos-related diseases.

Grace agreed last month to pay $250 million to remove contamination in Libby — the largest clean-up settlement in the history of the federal government’s Superfund program.

Grace said Monday that it will take on a maximum of $1.5 billion in debt to emerge from bankruptcy and will seek a revolving loan of undetermined amount.

Grace still has to settle cases dealing with attic insulation and property damage, but Festa said those should not affect the timetable to emerge from bankruptcy.

“The big nut was the personal injury claims when we declared bankruptcy, so this was a big one to get off of our docket,” he said.

The settlement calls for Grace to make an up-front cash payment of $250 million to the trust. The company will then make annual payments totaling $1.55 billion from 2019 to 2034. Grace will put 50.1 percent of its common stock up as collateral to guarantee the payments.

The trust fund will also get proceeds from insurance that Grace had in place to cover asbestos claims. The company said Monday that it has $917 worth of coverage through solvent insurance carriers and $250 million through carriers that are undergoing some form of reorganization.

The trust fund also gets warrants to buy up to 10 million Grace shares for $17 a share — well below Monday’s closing price of $26.83.

The fund will get about $1.2 billion more in assets from previous settlements with Sealed Air Corp. and Fresenius Medical Care Holdings Inc. Those companies purchased two former Grace business units just prior to the chemical maker’s bankruptcy filing. Lawyers for asbestos claimants said the asset sales were fraudulent, arguing that Grace sold the units to shield itself from asbestos claims.

To get a piece of the settlement, claimants will have to apply to the trust fund. A panel will determine if the claim qualifies and then seek to determine an award amount, said Cooney, the victims’ lawyer. The amount a victim receives will depend on such factors as age and severity of the illness.

“You’ll have the right to recover a whole range of values depending on how you were personally impacted,” Cooney said.

Under the settlement, Grace will be shielded from further personal injury lawsuits. Victims could sue the trust only if they are not happy with a settlement.

“This settles everything,” Festa said. “They cannot sue Grace for any further asbestos liabilities in the future. They would have to go through the trust and say they were not being treated fairly.”

The settlement doesn’t erase all of Grace’s problems.

Claims regarding Grace-made attic and wall insulation installed in millions of homes and offices are pending in federal court. It also faces complaints seeking damages for the cost of removing Grace products from homes and offices. More than 4,000 cases were brought against the company. It has 175 left to settle.

The company and some of its current and former executives still face criminal charges related to the Libby mine operation. They stand accused of knowingly exposing thousands of workers and residents near the mine to asbestos fibers for decades.

Festa said the criminal trial is separate from the bankruptcy proceedings.

Some victims were unhappy with Monday’s settlement.

Libby victims said they feared the settlement won’t adequately replace the Grace-funded medical plan offered to Libby residents suffering from asbestos complications. Though Grace says the plan will continue after the company emerges from bankruptcy, Jon Heberling, lead counsel for the Libby victims, says there is nothing in writing to enforce that.

Libby resident Gayla Benefield, who lost both of her parents to asbestos disease and now suffers from it herself, says medical care is the most important issue to her. She spends about $900 every month just on prescriptions and fears the amount she could receive from the settlement will not cover all her health costs, let alone adequately compensate her for her turmoil.

“When Grace jumps up and starts throwing money around, to tell you the truth, we would like to see the company crumble,” Benefield said.

Heberling said he and Benefield disagreed with the proposed settlement. They want to make sure that Libby gets a “large piece of the pie” in the final settlement.

One legal expert said settling the suits removes a large hurdle from Grace’s business.

“It puts the issue of payments to the asbestos claimants behind them so they can move on to their core business, which is definitely not defending lawsuits, but making the products they sell,” said Alan Kopit, legal editor at lawyers.com. “If you had piecemeal cases, you could never quantify to any degree the extent of the liability. Now it quantifies itself and creates a fund for the claimants to tap into.”

andrea.walker@baltsun.com

paul.adams@baltsun.com

Sun reporter Megan Hartley contributed to this article.

Source: http://www.baltimoresun.com

Although asbestos-related issues appear to have been pushed to the back burner, the cost of exposure to the carcinogen has been high and will get much higher.

Outlays for asbestos claims total $54 billion, and most analysts believe that the number of claimants and total payouts will continue to rise, according to a study by Sebago Associates commissioned by the American Insurance Association.

Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, an actuarial consulting firm, projects that 1.1 million claims will eventually be filed, with the total cost to defendants and insurers amounting to $200 billion.

Milliman USA, another actuarial consulting firm, also forecasts 1.1 million total cumulative claims, but it projects higher total costs of $275 billion.

An estimated 1.3 million people in the construction industry are still exposed to asbestos, including drywall hangers, pipe fitters, carpenters and those in building demolition and remodeling.

“We still have homes, offices, hospitals with asbestos; we have underground infrastructure, sewers and tunnels that are built with asbestos,” said Linda Reinstein, executive director and co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, and keynote speaker at the ADAO Asbestos Awareness conference in Detroit in late March.

“It’s everywhere, in products and even kids’ toys.”

Although asbestos was listed as a carcinogen in the 1970s, her organization found trace amounts in five childrens’ toys, Reinstein said, so raising awareness is important.

Dr. George Riegel was preaching about the ills of asbestos and black mold 20 years ago, and much of it fell on deaf ears. So he quit practicing medicine and opened Asbestos Removal Technology in Southfield to meet the problem head on.

He also opened Healthy Homes Inc., an environmental inspection and remediation business.

“It’s in thousands, if not millions, of homes; it’s in most homes built before 1978, in asbestos floor tiles, steam pipe insulation, the old gravity furnace octopus ducts and in vermiculite in attic insulation,” said Riegel, who also participated in the conference, which was co-sponsored by the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and ADAO.

“The diseases range from scarring of the lungs and lung cancer, to a particularly horrific form of cancer, mesothelioma,” said Dr. Michael R. Harbut, co-director, National Center for Vermiculite and Asbestos-Related Cancers at Karmanos. “The significant thing is the latency period is 15-40 years, so we began climbing a plateau in 1993 and it will continue to 2018.

“There are 10,000 deaths a year and that number will climb.”

Harbut estimated there are at least 300,000 - 400,000 homes with some form of asbestos, which reached its peak use in 1978.

He said that for those with asbestos in the attic, even the yearly ritual of retrieving stored holiday decorations is probably too much exposure, noting it only takes one fiber.

Thousands of businesses went bankrupt and out of business as a result of asbestos claims, and probably the most notable, Federal Mogul Corp., just emerged from a six-year reorganization in January having dealt with hundreds of thousands of claims.

The U.S. Senate passed some asbestos legislation, said Riegel, and Congressman John Dingell D-Dearborn, is working on legislation in the House. Nothing definitive has happened in Congress yet, and no date certain is set yet.

“There isn’t enough education for those that may have been exposed,” said Reinstein, whose husband died from mesothelioma. “We need to have legislation that bans asbestos and funds education.”

More focus needs to be on modern treatments, education and research for cures, Harbut said, rather than clouding the issue in defense of asbestos lawsuits.

Riegel said they are still finding asbestos in tiles at some hardware stores, and suggested homeowners and business owners just leave any suspected asbestos-contaminated areas alone and never try to remove them without a licensed professional.

“Get educated and make your own sound decisions,” he said.

Source:

The trial was designed to show a statistically significant improvement in overall survival for UMM patients who were treated with a combination of ONCONASE and doxorubicin as compared to UMM patients who were treated with doxorubicin as a single agent. Enrollment in the ONCONASE Phase IIIb clinical trial closed on Sept. 30, 2007. A total of 428 patients were enrolled in the trial.

Alfacell has licensed the U.S. commercial rights for ONCONASE to Strativa, the branded product division of Par Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Strategic marketing and distribution agreements for ONCONASE have been secured with BL&H Co. Ltd. for Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, USP Pharma Spolka Z.O.O., an affiliate of US Pharmacia, for Eastern Europe, and GENESIS Pharma, S.A. for Southeastern Europe.

ONCONASE has been granted fast track status and orphan-drug designation for the treatment of malignant mesothelioma by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Additionally, ONCONASE has been granted orphan-drug designation in the European Union and Australia.

About ONCONASE(R: 63.97, -2.71, -4.06%)

ONCONASE is a first-in-class product candidate based on Alfacell’s proprietary ribonuclease (RNase) technology. A natural protein isolated from the leopard frog, ONCONASE has been shown in the laboratory and clinic to target cancer cells while sparing normal cells. ONCONASE triggers apoptosis, the natural death of cells, via multiple molecular mechanisms of action.

About Alfacell Corporation

Alfacell Corporation is the first company to advance a biopharmaceutical product candidate that works in a manner similar to RNA interference (RNAi) through late-stage clinical trials. The product candidate, ONCONASE, is an RNase that overcomes the challenges of targeting RNA for therapeutic purposes while enabling the development of a new class of targeted therapies for cancer and other life-threatening diseases. In addition to the Phase IIIb study in malignant mesothelioma, Alfacell is conducting a Phase I/II trial of ONCONASE in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and other solid tumors. For more information, visit www.alfacell.com.

Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com

The gran-of-two was given a year to live after being diagnosed with an asbestos-related lung cancer.

Margaret, 68, believes she developed the incurable condition mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos dust at hospitals in Sunderland.

She said: “I feel disgruntled because I’ve worked all those years in the NHS helping patients to get better and now I’ve been the victim. I loved nursing.”

Margaret, of Fulwell, believes she came into contact with asbestos dust in basements while at the old Sunderland Royal Infirmary, Monkwearmouth Hospital and Sunderland Eye Infirmary.

Margaret’s husband George, 67, - a retired colliery electrical engineer - , has been battling a form of cancer, lymphoma, for the past seven years.

The couple were stunned when Margaret was diagnosed with mesothelioma in May last year.

After suffering from a persistent cough, tests showed she had fluid on the lung, and further checks detected cancerous cells, which later turned out to be mesothelioma.

She said: “It was devastating. The first thing I thought of was that I won’t see my grandchildren grow up.

“It’s a terminal illness. I was given a year to live last May.”

Margaret had heard of mesothelioma - more commonly found among people who worked in heavy industry - after she and George lost a close friend to the illness 12 years ago. The former shipyard plumber died at the age of 57.

Margaret had six sessions of chemotherapy at Sunderland Royal Hospital, ending last October, but the illness is taking its toll.

She said: “I get very tired. I can’t do things I used to. If I go upstairs I can’t breathe very well.”

Margaret has two sons Christopher, 38, and Steven, 37, and two grandchildren Olivia, four, and two-year-old Callum.

Margaret knew she wanted to be a nurse from the age of just five, after ending up in hospital on several occasions as an accident-prone child.

She worked at the old Sunderland Royal Infirmary, in D
urham Road, between 1956 and 1962 and believes she was exposed to asbestos dust from poorly maintained pipe insulation.

She says the pipes in the basement, which she regularly had to visit, were insulated with asbestos lagging that crumbled when disturbed.

She also worked at the Sunderland Eye Infirmary, on Queen Alexandra Road, between 1962 and 1969 and between 1988 and 1994, although asbestos had been removed during the second period.

Margaret also worked at Monkwearmouth Hospital, on Newcastle Road, between 1973 and 1988, including the Williamson Ward 2, the men’s orthopaedic ward, and on ward, the ladies’ orthopaedic ward.

She said she had to go to the basement regularly during her shift to get splints or wheelchairs and claims it was there that she was exposed to asbestos dust.

Mesothelioma can develop when asbestos dust, containing deadly fibres, are inhaled.

Source: http://www.sunderlandecho.com

One man in his 70s died in October of pericardial mesothelioma–a form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos–and seven other people developed health problems after inhaling asbestos, according to the ward office.

The victims are all aged between 50 and 90 and have lived near the former Omori factory of asbestos-related products manufacturer Miyadera Insulation Corp., which is based in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo.

At least 10 people in the ward are believed to have been affected by airborne asbestos, but none of them came down with symptoms of asbestos-related conditions such as pericardial mesothelioma.

Asbestos-related health problems were detected in ward residents who live near the site, with one person dying and eight others being diagnosed with pleural effusion, also called water on the chest.

This led the ward office to give free medical examinations to 916 residents and former residents who lived within one kilometer of the site.

Three of the 45 newly found cases of health problems involved former employees of the factory and 29 were family members and associates of employees. A further three used to play on the site as children, while 10 said they had never entered the site.

Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp