We are happy to report our tissue collection study Meso-ORIGINS is open for recruitment at our first 2 sites:

@NHSGGC with PI @kevingblyth

@BristolARU with PI Anna Bibby

Meso-ORIGINS (Mesothelioma Observational study of RIsk prediction and Generation of benign-meso tissue pairs, Including a Nested MRI Sub-study) forms the prospective tissue collection element of the PREDICT-Meso International Accelerator Network. It received ethics committee approval in October 2021 (REC ref 21/WS/0120) and is open to recruit in Glasgow and Bristol, with a further 9 sites in the process of set-up.

In the study patients will be identified then followed up in parallel with routine clinical visits to monitor for evidence of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM) evolution. The aim is to generate a large prospective cohort of asbestos-exposed patients with benign initial biopsies that we can retrieve and then match to any subsequent samples acquired at MPM evolution. These samples will be used in downstream pre-clinical work packages to define the biology driving mesothelioma evolution, define any new drug targets and validate these in a suite of pre-clinical models generated using the same material. By the end of the 5-year program we aim to have drug-target combinations ready for human trials.

Arm A of the study aims to recruit asbestos exposed patients with benign initial pleural biopsies, follow these cases up for 2 years and collect repeat biopsies in patients who develop MPM. Baseline blood and breath tests (+/-MRI if participating in MRI sub-study) will be collected and used for risk profiling – helping us to design future studies of early intervention in those at high-risk of mesothelioma evolution.

A characteristic of MPM is that multiple tumours can exist in different areas of pleural space and these may progress at different rates (spatial and temporal heterogeneity). In between there may be areas of benign pleural inflammation that does not progress to malignancy at all. Arm B will recruit patients with suspected but unconfirmed MPM, allowing consent for multi-region dedicated research biopsies to be received prior to Thoracoscopy. These samples will be subjected to multiomic characterisation in order to better understand heterogeneity and its impact on subsequent progression and outcome.

Check out our Meso-ORIGINS page for more detail

If you are interested in becoming a Meso-ORIGINS site, please contact PREDICT-Meso@glasgow.ac.uk for more information.