At present, there is no one therapy that has been proven most effective for mesothelioma. Treatments using surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and multimodality treatments have all been employed. Prognosis is largely affected by the stage of the mesothelioma at start of treatment. Mesotheliomas diagnosed at earlier stages obviously have better prognoses. Cures however are very rare. The patient\’s age, status of health, as well as the tumor\’s histological subtype also contributes to the prognosis of each patient.

Surgery by itself has not been proven to be very effective in the treatment of mesothelioma. Pleurectomy or decortication involves the stripping of the inside lining of the chest cavity. This is the most common surgery employed in treating mesothelioma. This is intended for patients with the earlier stages of the disease with the goal of total gross removal of the visible tumor, and not just for simple palliation. The removal of the entire diseased lung, the lining of the inside of the chest, as well as the ipsilateral hemidiaphragm and the ipsilateral pericardium, otherwise known as extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), is sometimes employed on patients with the more advanced stages of mesothelioma who can be cleared for surgery. With surgery as the sole treatment modality, the median survival time for patients with mesothelioma has been discovered to be only at 11.7 months.

Radiotherapy or radiation is also employed after surgery to consolidate treatment for patients whose mesothelioma is localized. Radiation is directed at the patient’s entire hemi-diaphragm as well as chest drain insertion sites. Often, radiation is given concurrently with chemotherapy. This approach of giving radiation as well as chemotherapy to patients after having undergone radical surgery have been shown to extend patient\’s life expectancy to more than 5 years. This is a big improvement from the 11.7 month average conferred from having surgery alone.

Radiotherapy is also used as a palliative treatment to relieve pain symptoms brought about by the growth of the tumor, and or the edema caused by the tumor\’s obstruction of lymph and blood vessels.

Chemotherapy has been proven to improve patients’ survival in certain randomized controlled trials. This is the only modality of treatment for mesothelioma that has been proven to do so. A combination therapy of cisplatin and pemetrexed has been shown to increase the median survival time in patients to about 13.3 months. In comparison, the median time of survival for those patients who had previously received only cisplatin was 10 months. A supplement of 500mcg of oral folate daily and 1000 mcg of intramuscular B12 every 9 weeks were shown to significantly reduce the common side effects of nausea, vomiting, stomatitis and diarrhea.

Trials involving immunotherapy for the treatment of malignant mesothelioma have been promising. Several trials using interferon- alpha in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma have been proven to reduce the tumor burden by as much as more than 50% with minimal side effects in about 20% of the patient population.

In essence a multimodality treatment regimen that consists of surgery with adjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy have been proven to be the most effective in dealing with malignant mesothelioma. Several trials have pegged the extension in survival time to about 3 to 14 years among patients with favorable factors for prognosis.

Author Bio: Seomul Evans is a senior SEO expert and copywriter for Mesothelioma daily writing about Asbestos Cover Ups.

Category: Cancer Survival
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