Standard Drug Treatments Offer Little Chance Fighting Mesothelioma
Oncologists and other cancer doctors decide what kind of treatment to go with to their patient. The options are endless. There are no regular treatment option for peritoneal mesothelioma cancer victims. This is due to the cancers high mortality rate, rareness, low treatment success rate, and small number of studies to provide meaningful statistics.
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.) 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.
The mesothelial tissue around the tumor is removed by surgery. It is a grueling surgery with unknown benefits to patients. The usual chemotherapy cocktails effective on other cancers are not effective on mesothelioma, and different combinations of chemotherapy drugs have been tried without a lot of success. Similar to radiation, focus in research is focusing on treating the physical location of the tumor with emphasis on the pleural cavity.
The high-mortality rate for mesothelioma patients means cutting-edge techniques for cancer are tried out. 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..
Before acting, oncologists review the stage of mesothelioma, position of the tumor, and age and health status of the patient. Theres also photodynamic therapy and gene therapy ” two far-out new ways of attacking cancer. Patients afflicted with mesothelioma are benefitting in these clinical trials.
