Radiation Therapy Do Little to Help those Suffering with Mesothelioma, However Photodynamic Therapy May Be a Hope
Oncologists determine what course of treatment to administer for each patient. The options are endless. There are no standard treatment option for mesothelioma patients. 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), radiation (killing the cancerous cells with radiation), and chemotherapy (poisoning the cancerous cells.) There are problems with all three. Mesothelioma patients treated with traditional radiation therapy have not responded well to it. In hopes to lessen damage to healthy tissue, researches are studying ways to aim radiation right at the tumor.
Surgery takes out the mesothelial cancerous tissue around the tumor. This surgery is extensive and it is not clear how much the patient benefits. Common chemotherapy drugs that work on other types of cancer usually 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 techniques include a biologic therapy called the agent interleukin 2 and anti-angiogenesis drugs like 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. Two therapies that are extremely cutting-edge in fighting cancer are called photodynamic and gene therapy. Mesothelioma patients sometimes become involved in clinical trials in this area, and see benefits.
