Oncologists Wield Breakthrough Courses in Battle with Mesothelioma, despite the Fact that Prognosis Is Still Bleak
Cancer doctors decide what kind of treatment to pursue with a patient. There are numerous options. There exists no one size fits all treatment course for mesothelioma victims. This is because of the relative rareness of the disease, the high mortality rate and low treatment success rate, and the few scientific studies to provide meaningful statistics.
Mesothelioma patients have historically had a bleak outlook, but doctors have recently made progress. Traditional treatments for cancer are surgery (removing the tumor and surrounding tissue), chemotherapy (poisoning cancerous cells) and radiation (killing cancer cells with radiation) Each one of these methods have problems. Patients with mesothelioma have not responded well to traditional radiation therapy. Researches, concerned about damage to healthy tissue, are looking for ways to aim radiation directly at tumors.
Surgery removes the mesothelial tissue around the tumor. The surgery is difficult and challenging, with unknown effects or benefits to patients. Most chemotherapy medication that work on other cancers typically do not work on mesothelioma, and combinations of chemotherapy agents have been tried, but without much success. Similar to radiation, focus in research is focusing on treating the physical location of the tumor with emphasis on the pleural cavity.
Many advanced techniques in cancer treatment are tried on mesothelioma patients because of its high fatality rate. These include biologic therapy such as the agent interleukin 2 and anti-angiogenesis drugs such as thalidomide. The new drug pemetrexed (brand name Alimta) has shown good results in extending life with mesotheliomas..
Oncologists consider the stage of mesothelioma, the location of the tumor, the patient’s age and state of health at the time. Two exotic ways of attacking mesothelioma are gene therapy and photodynamic therapy. Clinical trials using these techniques are being offered to some of those who have mesothelioma.
