Genetic Therapies Could Make Promising Treatment for Mesothelioma in Comparison to Standard Cancer Treatment
Oncologists determine what course of treatment to go with to each patient. There are many options. There are no standard treatment regimen for malignant mesothelioma cancer sufferers. Mesotheliomas lack of agreed-upon treatment is due to low a treatment success rate, rareness, a high mortality rate and a small number of studies providing meaningful stats.
While prospects for patients with mesothelioma have been bleak, doctors have been making progress. Treatments for cancer are traditionally surgery (taking out the tumor and surrounding tissue), radiation (killing the cancerous cells with radiation), and chemotherapy (poisoning the cancerous cells.) All three methods have problems. Traditional radiation therapy has not worked well with mesothelioma patients. In hopes to lessen damage to healthy tissue, researches are studying ways to aim radiation right at the tumor.
The mesothelial tissue around the tumor is removed by surgery. This surgery is extensive and it is not clear how much the patient benefits. The usual chemotherapy cocktails effective on other cancers are not effective on mesothelioma, and combinations of chemotherapy agents have been tried, but without much success. Like radiation, researchers are focusing their work on controlling the physical location of the treatment with an 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).
Considered by oncologists is where the tumor is located, what stage the mesothelioma is in, and the age and health of the patient. Two exotic ways of attacking mesothelioma are gene therapy and photodynamic therapy. Patients afflicted with mesothelioma are benefitting in these clinical trials.
