Malignant pleural mesothelioma is not only rare, but it is also diagnosed late. Hence, there are only limited treatments to cure lung lining cancer.

A major challenge that scientists face is focusing the treatment on a targeted bunch of cells. Recent research explains that Malignant pleural mesothelioma can also be cured by targeting the therapy to specific cancer cells. this is brought about by near-infrared photoimmunotherapy.

however, near-infrared light is not solely responsible for eliminating tumor cells. This photoimmunotherapy is dependent on a compound that is injected into the body prior to the treatment. This compound is a conjugation of the NZ-1 antibody and IR700 photoabsorber. When near-infrared-light is shown to the cancer cells, this compound destroys the tumor.

NZ-1 was considered to be the best suitable antibody for the purpose since it targets podoplanin. Podoplanin is a glycoprotein that is abundantly found in cancer cells.

The team conducted an experiment on mice that were suffering from malignant pleural mesothelioma. NZ-1-IR700 was injected into their body that accumulated on the tumor cells. later when near-infrared light was shown, the cancer cells seemed to swell and rupture, making the experiment a success.

This therapy will have minimal side effects and is an easy cure for this type of cancer. None of the drugs administered prior to the treatment are harmful or have any side effects if they are left idle in the body without exposing them to near-infrared light. As this cancer is found in the lung linings, near-infrared light has plenty of open space and a perfect amount of air to perform its function on the targeted cells.      

The study, “Targeted Phototherapy for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: Near-Infrared Photoimmunotherapy Targeting Podoplanin”, was authored by Nishinaga Y, Sato K, Yasui H, Taki S, Takahashi K, Shimizu M, Endo R, Koike C, Kuramoto N, Nakamura S, Fukui T, Yukawa H, Baba Y, K. Kaneko M, Chen-Yoshikawa TF, Kobayashi H, Kato Y, Hasegawa Y.