Anti-asbestos drug could prevent harmful effects

A drug that could protect people from the harmful effects of inhaling asbestos fibres decades ago has been found.

The use of asbestos half a century ago has triggered an epidemic that will kill 200,000 people in Britain through lung cancer and mesothelioma, an untreatable cancer of the mesothelium, a thin membrane that lines the chest.

The disease can develop up to 60 years after exposure to asbestos. Around 3,500 die each year as a result to exposure before its use was banned. Most die from cancer but another 200 succumb to the breathing difficulties of asbestosis.

Now a drug that can may eventually help protect those who have been exposed has resulted from a study, published in Science, that for the first time explains how the fibres lead to the chronic lung inflammation that causes cancer.

Prof Jürg Tschopp of the University of Lausanne and colleagues in Europe and the United States report that the inflammation is linked to a complex of proteins, known as the Nalp3 inflammasome.

This protein complex is also involved in other inflammatory processes such as gout, which can be treated with a drug called Anakinra.

Now the team believes that this same drug may also be useful for slowing the progression of asbestosis, silicosis or other lung diseases linked with inhaling mineral fibres.

Asbestosis is the scarring of lung tissue resulting from the chronic inflammation triggered by the particles, which in turn makes the lung less efficient and breathing more difficult.

"Because exposure to asbestos increases not only the risk of asbestosis, but also lung cancer, mesothelioma, and other uncurable cancers, this suggested new treatment is highly desirable," says Prof Tschopp.

He said that use of Anakinra would be used for prevention and not a cure. "Rather persons exposed to asbestos in the past and thus at high risk to get asbestosis or lung cancer could be treated with an inhibitor drug."

Given the success of treating gout this way, "we are therefore quite optimistic that the same treatment will work for asbestosis."

"We have not started yet, but I am sure that somewhere in the world clinicians will."

Dr Joanna Owens, Cancer Research UK senior scientific officer, comments: "This important laboratory research brings us a step closer to understanding how asbestos causes the chronic inflammation that can lead to cancer.

"These results should help scientists find better ways to treat people who have been exposed to asbestos in the past. But Anakinra will need thorough testing in clinical trials before we'll know if it's safe and effective at preventing asbestos-related cancers."

The Greeks termed asbestos the "miracle mineral" because of its soft and pliant properties, as well as its ability to withstand heat.

Asbestos became increasingly popular among manufacturers and builders in the late 19th century due to its resistance to heat, electricity and chemical damage, its sound absorption and tensile strength.

Asbestos was used, for example, in brake shoes for its heat resistance, and in buildings for its flame-retardant and insulating properties, tensile strength, flexibility, and resistance to chemicals.

When it was found that inhalation of asbestos fibres caused serious illnesses, including asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, most uses of asbestos have been banned in many countries since the mid 1980s.

Experts have warned that carpenters and builders exposed in the 1960s and '70s faced a grim future as the incidence of mesothelioma was still rising.

Overall, 30,000 Britons have already died of the disease since 1970, and another 60,000 are expected to die over the next 40 years, mainly because asbestos was used extensively as a building material from the 1950s to the mid-1980s.

Around one man in every 150 born in the 1940s - the highest risk group - will be killed by the disease, unless this kind of novel approach pays off.

Source - telegraph.co.uk

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