Mesothelioma is a really rare form of lung cancer — but it’s also very deadly. Now, a new form of treatment has been approved by the FDA to treat it, which could be groundbreaking for people with the disease. NovoCure’s NovoTTF-100L System, a wearable medical device about the size of a backpack that uses electric fields to disrupt solid tumor cancer cell division, has been approved by the FDA for locally advanced or metastatic malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). It is the first treatment to be approved for this disease in more than 15 years.
Mesothelioma is primarily caused by asbestos exposure, which has been greatly reduced in the US due to increased home and worker safety regulations. “It’s maybe 1 or 2 percent as common as lung cancer or breast cancer, so maybe a few thousand cases a year in the United States,” Dr. Joseph Friedberg, the head of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at University of Maryland School of Medicine, recently told SurvivorNet when discussing mesothelioma in general (he was not discussing NovoCure). “It’s the cancer which is, the overwhelming majority of the time, caused by asbestos.”
Read MoreThe hope of researchers with the NovoTTF-100L System is to give patients with this devastating disease another option. Mary Hesdorffer, executive director of the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation, said that only 10 to 20% of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma are eligible for surgery to remove a tumor — so having another option is a major improvement.
“Typically, mesothelioma patients who cannot have surgery receive palliative care to mitigate their symptoms. NovoTTF-100L provides unresectable (malignant pleural mesothelioma) patients with a treatment option that may improve survival. We are encouraged by the FDA approval and hope it is just the beginning of innovation in the treatment of this aggressive disease.”
Disclosure: A founder of SurvivorNet was also an early investor and board member at NovoCure.
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