Mesothelioma Treatment
The course of treatment for mesothelioma is primarily determined by the staging or development of the disease. The treatment of malignant mesothelioma using conventional therapies in combination with radiation or chemotherapy on stage I or II mesothelioma has proved on average to be 74.6% successful in extending the patients life span by five years or more. That percentage may increase or decrease though depending on the stage of malignant development and date of discovery.
Traditional treatments such as surgery by itself has proved to only be 16.3% likely to extend the patients life span by five years or more. Even though surgery by itself has proved to have disappointing effects, research has indicated varied success when used in combination with radiation and chemotherapy. The most common surgery for mesothelioma is a pleurectomy which is where the lining of the chest cavity is removed. A less common surgery is an extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), which is where the lung, lining of the chest cavity, hemi-diaphragm, and the pericardium are all removed.
For patients who have localized mesothelioma and can handle a radical surgery, radiation is often given after the operation as a second treatment. Delivering radiation and chemotherapy after a radical surgery has been known to extend the life expectancy more than 5 years in some patients. Radiation therapy used byitself for a treatment has never been shown to improve the survival of patients from mesothelioma, because the dose needed to efficiently treat the disease
would be very toxic.
Chemotherapy on the other hand is the only treatment for mesothelioma that has been proven to improve the survival rate in both randomized and controlled trials. Some side effects of chemotherapy may include nausea and vomiting, stomatitis (inflammation of the mucous lining of any of the structures in the mouth), and diarrhea. In February 2004 the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pemetrexed chemotherapy for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. Also just recently in January 2009 the FDA approved the use of conventional therapies such as surgery in combination with radiation and/or chemotherapy on stage I and II mesothelioma. Research conducted by a nationwide study by Duke University concluded that there was an almost 50 point increase in remission rates when these methods were used.
