Advances in the treatment of mesothelioma offer hope for anyone affected by this rare cancer.
Today, some survivors live five to 10 years or more after receiving a mesothelioma diagnosis -- a life expectancy that once was measured by months. Learn about your body and this disease, and take control of your cancer treatment.
While there is no absolute cure for this asbestos-related cancer, potentially curative treatment plans exist so long as the disease is diagnosed early enough and medical care is specialized. Because mesothelioma is such a complicated disease, treatment should be tailored to exactly what your body needs. That means factoring in the stage and type of your cancer as well as your age, general health and how aggressive you want your treatment to be.
Finding the right specialist -- one with experience in treating your exact form of this rare cancer -- is critical in your treatment strategy. Find a specialist now
Types of Mesothelioma Treatment
The types of treatment you can receive depend on your diagnosis. Treatment is typically broken down into two categories: curative and palliative. Curative treatments like surgery aim to get cancer out of your body. If your tumors do not metastasize, you should have surgical options. In addition, different chemotherapy regimens and diverse radiation treatments can help. Palliative treatments aim to make you more comfortable as you live with cancer. Doctors will address your symptoms with the goal of improving the quality of your life.
In both cases, mesothelioma patients should ask about options other than the standards of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Experimental treatments do exist, mostly through clinical trials. They include rapidly developing gene therapy and immunotherapy, along with photodynamic therapies, all of which can be discussed with an experienced specialist.
- Surgery
- Chemotherapy
- Radiation
- Multimodal
Mesothelioma Surgery
Cutting out tumors, along with chemotherapy, is considered the most effective way to eliminate cancer from your body. This is particularly true with pleural mesothelioma and peritoneal mesothelioma. An increasing number of surgeons are performing surgery to remove cancer from the lining of the lungs or from the lining of the abdominal cavity.
Surgeries can have different objectives, depending upon the stage of the cancer and your overall health. Some can be highly invasive and lengthy, but potentially curative and life changing. Others can be less traumatic and more palliative in nature. Surgery often is accompanied by some type of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, with the goal of killing any cancer cells that might have been left behind.
Learn more about mesothelioma surgery
Emerging and Experimental Treatments
Because of the low rate of successful treatments today, the future of mesothelioma treatment almost certainly involves therapies still in development. Do not be afraid to bring this up for discussion with your specialists. The potential of immunotherapy, gene therapy and photodynamic therapy is enormous, and research on these new treatments is considered cutting edge.
Immunotherapy
This involves manipulating your own immune system to help fight off the cancer growth. This is a specific treatment that involves your own cells being altered in the laboratory and returned to your body to fight the cancer without the use of toxic drugs.
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Gene Therapy
This involves repairing the defective genes by injecting the patient with a modified virus to do the work. Regardless of the location of the cancer, gene therapy can introduce genetic material that targets the cancer cells.
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Photodynamic Therapy
This uses light energy to kill the mesothelioma cells. A drug makes the cancer cells sensitive to a particular light wavelength, and then the tumor cells are exposed to the light through a laser. It is an outpatient procedure with few harmful side effects.
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Clinical Trials
Anyone with a rare cancer like mesothelioma should know to explore clinical trials as a treatment option. While there are never any guarantees, this is where future successful cancer treatments will be developed. If you decide that participating in a clinical trial is the way to go, your participation at the very least will help shape advances for future patients. If you're lucky, you might find something that really works for your situation.
Clinical trials are being conducted now that will advance both gene therapy and immunotherapy, along with new chemotherapy drugs and other experimental treatment options. These are options that haven't been approved yet by the FDA, but that doesn't mean they don't work.
Learn more about mesothelioma clinical trials
Fast Fact: Surgical mortality has drastically improved in recent years. For example, in a 1984 study on the efficacy of pleurectomy/decortication surgeries, a mortality rate of 11 percent was reported. Today's mortality rate for pleurectomy/decortication is 4 percent, with a median survival time of nine to 19 months.
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) options are considered unconventional and are often dismissed by medical professionals. But they can be used alongside more traditional approaches to cancer treatment. Alternative treatments don't always treat the disease itself but concentrate on the patient mentally, emotionally and physically.
Things like massage, acupuncture, yoga, naturopathy and aromatherapy all are considered complementary therapy that can be used to relieve the pain from mesothelioma or reduce stress that comes from traditional treatment. Meditation also helps some patients. More and more patients are also pushing for access to medical marijuana, which is helps control cancer pain.
The Cost of Mesothelioma Treatment
Health care costs involving mesothelioma treatment can be prohibitive without medical insurance or other financial help. There are options available, though, through the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs, other governmental programs or through clinical trials.
Patients and their families must factor the expense of care into their treatment plans. Costs of these treatments often do not cover palliative care options or medical equipment. Treatment for mesothelioma often precludes you from working, which could cut significantly into the ability to pay for care.
There can be travel costs, too, in finding the right specialist, or enrolling in the clinical trial that might fit you. Some facilities offer travel grants that include temporary housing while undergoing treatment.
If you can afford the expense of travel, it is worth finding specialized care. If you can't afford it, ask for assistance. Some of the top mesothelioma treatment centers have resources to help with expenses. Others are willing to work with your local oncologist in formulating a treatment strategy that best fits your needs.
Learn more about treatment expenses
Doctors and Treatment Facilities
If you have mesothelioma and live near a cancer center that specializes in treating the disease, consider yourself fortunate. This will make your medical care easier for you.
Mesothelioma is not something to be treated at your local hospital. There are an estimated 3,000 cases annually diagnosed in America, and most doctors around the country never treat it - or even see it.
A number of treatment facilities are clustered in the Northeast, near New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Other top centers reside in higher U.S. population areas: Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Seattle and Tampa.
The same is true for the best mesothelioma doctors. The top specialists work at recognized mesothelioma centers. Some of the best known mesothelioma specialists, like David Sugarbaker, M.D., at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, trained young surgeons who have moved on to other cities and treatment centers. Younger surgeons like Jacques Fontaine, M.D., at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa or Alexander Farivar, M.D., at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, took Sugarbaker's expertise to others around the country.
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History of Mesothelioma Treatment
Although asbestos has been used for thousands of years, the first documented case of an asbestos-related disease didn't come until 1899. The disease was not given the name mesothelioma until 1931, and since then treatment of it has improved slowly but steadily.
For decades, doctors struggled to understand mesothelioma and how it progressed. It wasn't until the 1960s that the disease was found to originate in the mesothelial cells surrounding the lungs. It is this complexity of the disease, combined with its rarity and its aggressive nature, that complicates the quest to find a cure.
Recent Mesothelioma Treatment News
Researchers are excited about the study of a cancer stem-cell inhibitor called defactinib (VS-6063), which is designed to stop a particular protein within mesothelioma cells. Although stem cells are only a small percentage of cells within a tumor, they are considered the driver of tumor growth. It’s the stem cells that are resistant to chemotherapy and cause the cancer recurrence.
There is an ongoing, international study of defactinib involving almost 400 mesothelioma patients that is showing considerable promise.
“It could become the next drug to be used,” said James Stevenson, M.D., Cleveland Clinicinvestigator and renowned oncologist. “The potential is there. If this trial turns out positive, it would be a big step forward for mesothelioma patients."
Doctors are hoping that defactinib could become an effective maintenance therapy that will follow traditional chemotherapy. Defactinib could be used for extended periods because it is considerably less toxic than Alimta (Pemetrexed), still the only FDA-approved drug for the treatment of mesothelioma. Previous research has shown that while standard chemotherapy can shrink the size of tumors, it actually helps the stem cells grow, which leads to metastasis.
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