Oncologists and other cancer doctors choose what kind of treatment to go with for each patient. There are many options. There exists no regular treatment option for asbestos cancer 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.
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), chemotherapy (poisoning cancerous cells) and radiation (killing cancer cells with radiation) All three methods have problems. Mesothelioma patients treated with traditional radiation therapy have not responded well to it. Researchers are looking for ways of aiming radiation directly at the tumor in hopes that this will result in less damage to healthy tissue.
Surgery takes out the mesothelial cancerous tissue around the tumor. It is a grueling surgery with unknown benefits to patients. Common chemotherapy drugs that work on other types of cancer usually do not work on mesothelioma, and different mixtures of these drugs have not been successful. As with radiation, research is going toward controlling the physical location of the treatment 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. 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. Theres also photodynamic therapy and gene therapy ” two far-out new ways of attacking cancer. Clinical trials using these techniques are being offered to some of those who have mesothelioma.
