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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Large chromosomal rearrangements present in mesothelioma could make it possible to understand which patients are likely respond to immunotherapy, researchers at the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine have discovered. The research is published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.
“What we’ve shown so far is that these large complex chromosomal rearrangements are frequent in mesothelioma and may provide a source of neoantigens (cancer proteins) that the immune system can recognize,” says Aaron Mansfield, M.D., a Mayo Clinic oncology researcher and lead author on the paper. “It would be an entirely new way of predicting response.”
This finding is significant in part because the prognosis is often poor for mesothelioma — a rare, aggressive form of cancer linked to asbestos exposure that forms on tissue lining in the lungs, heart and abdomen. There is no cure, and standard cancer treatment of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery doesn’t work for everyone. Read the rest of the article on the Individualized Medicine blog.
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