Cancer Doctors Have Breakthrough Courses in Treatment for Mesothelioma, though Prognosis Is Still Desperate
Thursday, June 11th, 2009Oncologists and other cancer doctors choose what kind of treatment to pursue with a patient. There are numerous options. There is no standard treatment regimen for peritoneal mesothelioma cancer patients. This is due to the cancers high mortality rate, rareness, low treatment success rate, and small number of studies to provide meaningful statistics.
While prospects for patients with mesothelioma have been bleak, doctors have been making progress. Traditional treatments for cancer are surgery (removing the tumor and surrounding tissue), chemotherapy (poisoning cancerous cells) and radiation (killing cancer cells with radiation) All three methods have problems. Traditional radiation therapy has not worked well with mesothelioma patients. Researches, concerned about damage to healthy tissue, are looking for ways to aim radiation directly at tumors.
The mesothelial tissue around the tumor is removed by surgery. This surgery is extensive and it is not clear how much the patient benefits. Most chemotherapy medication that work on other cancers typically do not work on mesothelioma, and different combinations of chemotherapy drugs have been tried without a lot of success. As with radiation, research is going toward controlling the physical location of the treatment with emphasis on the pleural cavity.
The death rate for mesothelioma is so high that many of even the most sophisticated techniques in cancer treatment are tried out on patients. These include biologic therapy such as the agent interleukin 2 and anti-angiogenesis drugs such as thalidomide. A new drug that has shown results in improving survival is pemetrexed (brand name Alimta).
Oncologists consider the stage of mesothelioma, the location of the tumor, the patient’s age and state of health at the time. Theres also photodynamic therapy and gene therapy ” two far-out new ways of attacking cancer. Clinical trials using these techniques are being offered to some of those who have mesothelioma.
