Clinical Trial Uses Immunotherapy to Treat Mesothelioma

IMalignant pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs, is fatal in most cases. The majority of patients will die within a year and a half of diagnosis. The Mesothelioma Treatment Center at the Baylor College of Medicine Lung Institute is testing a new treatment that combines immunotherapy with a new drug that accelerates cell death. Researchers are now enrolling patients in a clinical trial.

This clinical trial treatment includes an IV infusion of a standard immunotherapy drug called Nivolumab that is effective in many human tumors and injections of a modified adenovirus called MTG201 that targets cancer cells and results in cell death. Burt has been studying the effectiveness of this combination treatment in the laboratory in animal models and said MTG201-induced cancer cell death releases tumor antigens, which allows the immunotherapy to target the cancer. The treatment also stimulated the immune system. Burt has seen remarkable results of this combination therapy in animals.

Read Full Story Here