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| call us toll free at: |
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| (877) END-MESO |
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| (877) 363-6376 |
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Treatment For Mesothelioma |
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Since there are no "Gold Standard"
treatments for mesothelioma, almost all the
leading treatments involve some form of
clinical trial. Our
clinical trial registry is updated every 60 days. |
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This section will explain what the
existing treatment options are, how they
work and what the implications and
pre-requisites are for each approach. |
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Treatment of mesothelioma
requires specialized skills, experienced
staff and access to new or experimental
protocols. Although mesothelioma is
a relatively rare disease, there are expert
physicians throughout the country that
have extensive experience in diagnosing
and treating mesothelioma effectively. |
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Read the biographies of mesothelioma
survivors; men and women from all walks
of life that have survived their battle
with mesothelioma. Inspiring stories to
lift the spirit of those who are newly
afflicted with this cancer. |
Introduction To
Treatment Options:
There are no treatments for mesothelioma that have
repeatedly provided a complete
response. Any discussion
of treatments, therefore, must include a wide
variety of approaches, all of which continue to be
considered primarily
palliative. We will also
deal with the post-treatment issues of recovery
and coping with after-effects. Also given
consideration will be concerns about recurrence
and long term prognoses.
As of early 2006, the state-of-the-art treatment
for mesothelioma always includes some form of surgery.
Either complete
resection (if possible) or
surgical debulking is a necessity for
adjuvant
treatments to be maximally effective. Surgery by
itself, is not considered optimal and the
practice of combining surgery with either
chemotherapy, radiation, or both has gained
acceptance as the preferred approach. This
combination of methods is called
multimodality
treatment and has shown the most progress of any
approach
Even
chemotherapy by itself is now rarely
administered as a single agent. Chemo protocols usually
involve two or more complementary agents, often
with widely different
targets for each
therapy. Assessments of various clinical trials
and experience with treatment outcomes that
rarely include
stable disease have
demonstrated that single protocol treatments are
much less effective. Single agent protocols are
therefore rapidly falling into disfavor.
Multimodality treatments that combine several
complementary approaches, i.e. surgery together with either radiation or a
combination of chemotherapy agents, are
complicated treatments and should only be pursued at
a mesothelioma center of excellence. Surgeries like
extrapleural pneumonectomy can involve
significant risks of mortality and
morbidity if performed by a
surgical and post-surgical nursing team
with limited experience. Experienced medical
teams can help to prevent or circumvent these
issues.
Whether pleural or peritoneal, surgery offers
the greatest chance for success but may include
serious, even life-threatening side-effects.
Such side effects, depending upon whether the
surgery is abdominal or thoracic may include
hemorrhage, lung infection,
empyema,
bronchoplenral fistula, heart
arrhythmia, chest
pain, abdominal pain, digestive problems,
constipation,
hemoptysis, nerve damage,
pulmonary embolism,
pneumothorax, or
pneumonitis. The surgery itself may
introduce
malignant seeding at the site of the incisions.
Certain chemotherapies may introduce another,
entirely different set of morbidity issues such
as
neuropathy, loss of appetite,
tinitus, hair
loss, weight loss, nausea and low blood counts
of
white and
red blood cells.
Despite the risks, treatments available today
have made significant progress against the
disease and with skillful intervention by
experienced mesothelioma specialists the benefits of
treatment far outweigh the alternatives. This is
true, both in
terms of improved quality of life, and in median
survival times, which keep growing in leaps and
bounds.
The choice of a treatment path is very much
dependent upon the type of mesothelioma the staging of
the disease and the health of the individual. As
an example, a
comparison of statistics for the various common
treatment options for pleural mesothelioma is shown in the table below:
Table A: Treatments and Outcomes For Pleural
Meso: Legend: 1=lowest, 5=highest, na=not available.
NOTE: Lower can mean both best and worst. Example:
Staging of 1 is best, Quality of Life (QOL)
of 1 is worst. Table courtesy Meso
Foundation 9/11 Asbestos Risk Assessment.
(a) (b) Author’s view based on
130+ patient interviews. (c) Since surgery is
not always possible or desirable, patients tend
to be segregated into surgical and other
treatment groups by stage. Lower stage patients
are more likely to be offered surgery. The
options on the left represent treatment choices
patients may be offered by their primary
physician. Not all patients are able or willing
to seek treatment at a mesothelioma center of
excellence.
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