Abstract
The incidence of mesothelioma is expected to increase dramatically over the next few decades. Survival of patients with mesothelioma is very poor, regardless of recent advances in chemotherapeutic modalities that combine cisplatin and the new antifolate, pemetrexed. New strategies based on better understanding of the biology of the disease are thus clearly needed to improve the treatment efficacy of this fatal disease. In this study, anti-tumor effect of amrubicin was examined by the colorimetric cell proliferation assay, and dose-dependent inhibition of the proliferation was observed in mesothelioma cell lines. In addition, the combination of cisplatin with amrubicin was more effective than that of cisplatin with pemetrexed. Furthermore, the adjunct use of a cyclooxygenase 2 inhibitor, celecoxib was shown to significantly enhance treatment efficacy of the combination of cisplatin and pemetrexed. These findings suggest that a cyclooxygenase 2 inhibitor may be promising in the treatment of mesothelioma, especially because of its enhancement of the treatment efficacy of conventional anticancer agents without compromising quality of life.
