Paraphrenitis Blog

Doctors who specialize in cancer treatment determine what course of treatment to go with for a patient. There are many options. There exists no one size fits all treatment course for mesothelioma sufferers. Mesotheliomas lack of agreed-upon treatment is due to low a treatment success rate, rareness, a high mortality rate and a small number of studies providing meaningful stats.

The prospects for mesothelioma patients have been grim, but doctors have recently made 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.) There are problems with all three. Traditional radiation therapy has not worked well with mesothelioma patients. Researches, concerned about damage to healthy tissue, are looking for ways to aim radiation directly at tumors.

Surgery takes out the mesothelial cancerous tissue around the tumor. The surgery is difficult and challenging, with unknown effects or benefits to patients. The usual chemotherapy cocktails effective on other cancers are not effective on mesothelioma, and different mixtures of these drugs have not been successful. Similar to radiation, focus in research is focusing on treating the physical location of the tumor with emphasis on the pleural cavity.

The death rate for mesothelioma is so high that many of even the most sophisticated techniques in cancer treatment are tried out on patients. These techniques include a biologic therapy called the agent interleukin 2 and anti-angiogenesis drugs like thalidomide. Pemetrexed (Alimta) is a new drug that has shown results in extending life.

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.