Scientists Seek Cure For Vaccine- And Asbestos-Linked Mesothelioma.(Brief Article)

2001 MAY 16 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

For years, doctors were certain that an exceptionally lethal cancer of the lungs' lining was caused only by exposure to asbestos.

But in 1994, a researcher at the U.S. National Institutes of Health made a discovery that set the scientific community abuzz: he found genetic material from a monkey virus and mesotheliomas inside 60% of the lung cancers that he tested. Millions of people may have been exposed to the virus, called SV40, through a contaminated polio vaccine in the 1950s.

On April 27, 2001, international scientists gathered in Chicago, Illinois, for a two-day conference to discuss how the virus, asbestos, and genetics apparently can work together to cause cancer. But they also heard about something unimaginable just a few short years ago: the possibility of preventing one of the deadliest of human cancers.

"I would like to see if we can do something for these people," said Dr. Michele Carbone, the NIH researcher who discovered SV40 in tumors and now a researcher at Loyola University's cancer center near Chicago. "We have a target now. Before we did not have a target. We want to see if we can influence the natural course of the disease."

The target is the virus, for which a vaccine is being developed, and potential genetic therapies for those who might be predisposed to mesotheliomas.

Until SV40 was discovered, many doctors and scientists had given up studying mesotheliomas, Carbone said. "It was depressing to treat because all your patients died, and researchers had no clue as to what could be done to develop a therapeutic approach," he said. Life expectancy for those who get the lung disease is nine to 15 months.