Commentary: Go small or go home

Our plain-English summary of Commentary: Go small or go home, by A.W. Kim, U. Ahmad (The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, 2020).

The study

• Authors: A.W. Kim, U. Ahmad
• Journal: The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
• Published: 2020;160(3):e173-e174
• Type of article: Editorial, Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This article is a short commentary by two thoracic surgeons, not an original study. It discussed a separate mouse study by Chu and colleagues, published in the same journal. That study tested the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel, carried in pH-responsive expansile nanoparticles, against malignant pleural mesothelioma. Mesothelioma cell lines were injected into the pleural space of mice. According to the commentary, overall survival doubled in that study's early-stage model. In its late-stage model, which used surgery as part of treatment, median overall survival in mice given the nanoparticle therapy followed by surgery was 126% greater than in mice given chemotherapy alone. The commentators noted that median survival for patients with this disease who had trimodality therapy has ranged from 15 to 18 months in other studies. They calculated that a 126% improvement would mean 34 to 41 months, but only if the mouse effect were repeated in humans. The authors described the Chu work as pioneering and foundational. The commentary did not discuss asbestos.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Commentary (invited editorial opinion) on a separate mouse experiment by Chu and colleagues; the commentators report no data of their own
• Who was studied: No population of the commentators' own. The study discussed (Chu and colleagues) used a mouse model in which mesothelioma cell lines were injected into the pleural space, with early-stage and late-stage models. Numbers of mice are not given in the commentary.
• Exposure: Not an asbestos exposure. The treatment studied by Chu and colleagues was paclitaxel-loaded pH-responsive expansile nanoparticles, combined with surgery in the late-stage model and compared with chemotherapy alone.
• Main results:
  • As described by the commentators: in the early-stage mouse model of Chu and colleagues, the nanoparticle therapy doubled overall survival
  • As described by the commentators: in the late-stage mouse model, median overall survival of mice given the nanoparticle therapy followed by surgery was 126% greater than that of mice given chemotherapy alone
  • The commentators' own hypothetical calculation: median survival for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma having trimodality therapy has ranged from 15 to 18 months in other published studies, and a 126% improvement would correspond to 34 to 41 months
• The authors' conclusion: The authors described the nanoparticle work of Chu and colleagues as pioneering and foundational. They said they looked forward to further data on how it might combine with immunotherapy.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The commentators framed any benefit to people as conditional, because the findings were observed in mice and had not been shown in humans

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Commentary: Local chemotherapy with nanoparticles: A ray of light in the dark? — S. Nakamura, T.F. Chen-Yoshikawa (2020)
• Commentary: One nano-step for murinekind, one giant leap for mesothelioma — J.S. Dutcher, J. D'Cunha (2020)
• Commentary on 'evaluation of take home (para-occupational) exposure to asbestos and disease: a review of the literature', Donovan et al.1 — D.S. Egilman, N.M. Druar (2013)
• Nanoparticle tumor localization, disruption of autophagosomal trafficking, and prolonged drug delivery improve survival in peritoneal mesothelioma — R. Liu, A.H. Colby, et al. (2016)
• Paclitaxel-loaded expansile nanoparticles enhance chemotherapeutic drug delivery in mesothelioma 3-dimensional multicellular spheroids — H. Lei, S.C. Hofferberth, et al. (2015)
• Paclitaxel-loaded expansile nanoparticles in a multimodal treatment model of malignant mesothelioma — M.D. Schulz, K.A. Zubris, et al. (2011)

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