MESOTHELIOMA is one of the most virulent of cancers.

Patients usually present to their doctors with shortness of breath, chest pains and loss of weight. Within a year they are almost always dead. There is no cure.

Until recently there was virtually no treatment.

Last week the NSW Government, in conjunction with Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, launched a research project combining the use of chemotherapy and thalidomide.

The treatment is the most promising breakthrough yet in the asbestos-related condition. Previous trials using chemotherapy or thalidomide alone showed positive results, the first in attacking the cancer and the latter in improving quality of life.

The trials are being funded with $198,000 from the Dust Diseases Board’s research grants scheme.

Several high payouts have brought renewed attention to asbestos- acquired diseases. The latest statistics from the Mesothelioma Register shows that between 1989 and 1996 some 2611 Australians, mostly men, were diagnosed with the disease.

While thalidomide caused birth defects when it was used as a tranquiliser in the 1950s and 1960s, it also has anti-angiogenic qualities: it inhibits the growth of blood vessels in tumours.

Dr Helen Wheeler, who with research partner Dr Nick Pavlakis will run the trials, said: “In mesothelioma there is no treatment or standard of care. Most things are just supportive therapy. Patients suffer pain and poor quality of life. It is a terrible disease. There is a desperate need for a new therapy.”

Initial experiments trialled patients on thalidomide or chemotherapy using low doses at frequent intervals. Those on the thalidomide had more pain relief and better quality of life. Those on chemotherapy lived with the disease more comfortably and appear to be surviving longer. The new trials will combine thalidomide with the chemotherapy.

Emily Blackman and Ron Evans are two patients who have had the chemotherapy and have both benefited markedly from it.

Last June Mrs Blackman was playing tennis when she felt short of breath and went to the doctor. She went in to hospital but was told there was no treatment and was sent home.

Like many sufferers, she does not know how she caught the disease but believes it may have come from washing her husband’s clothes. He was a carpenter at Royal North Shore Hospital for more than 30 years.

Her distressed sons got on to the internet and discovered that there were experimental therapies and refused to accept that there was no help for their mother. Now, feeling much better, every day is a gift.

“I wouldn’t like to go through the last year again,” she said. “I feel like I am in heaven in comparison.”

Ron Evans, 72, assumes he got the disease as a result of his years working as an electrician. Having already been through four heart attacks, he said: “I’m determined not to let them get me. I am proud of the age I have reached. Every day is a winner.”

Dust Diseases Board executive officer Geoff Lansley said the new trials were not only very promising, but were “something tangible, they are going to make a difference to the quality of life of these people. Whether a cure can be found or not is hypothetical, but for a person who has a death sentence quality of life is very important. All the old conventional approaches have gone nowhere”.

The Dust Diseases Board has a grants program of $1.1 million and is inviting further research funding submissions.