Mesothelioma

One of the scariest parts about this disease is that it can be resistant to most therapies, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.A press release from Alfacell Corporation says that the addition of a drug called Onconase (ranpirnase) to Adriamycin improves survival over Adriamycin alone in patients that have operable Onconase targets cancer cells while sparing healthy cells.

It is taken into the cancerous cell where it kills the cell through various processes.

Onconase is not yet proved by the FDA in the United States.A clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the addition of Onconase to Adriamycin compared to Adriamycin alone.

The trial included a total of 143 patients.

At one year 47 percent of patients treated with Onconase/Adriamycin were alive compared to 36 percent of patients treated with Adriamycin alone.The researchers feel that the drug improves outcomes when given with Adriamycin.

This trial was a Phase IIIb trial which means it could be up for FDA approval in the near future.The second article that I read was recently published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

According to the article treatme...

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