Standard Cancer Drugs Are Ineffective Victims of Mesothelioma, though Genetic Therapy Offers a Hope
Cancer doctors choose what type of treatment to go with with every patient. There are many options. There are no universal treatment option for peritoneal mesothelioma cancer patients. 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. Traditional treatments for cancer are surgery (removing 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. 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. This surgery is extensive and it is not clear how much the patient benefits. Common chemotherapy drugs that work on other types of cancer usually do not work on mesothelioma, and combinations of chemotherapy agents have been tried, but without much success. Like radiation, researchers are focusing their work on controlling the physical location of the treatment with an emphasis on the pleural cavity.
The high-mortality rate for mesothelioma patients means cutting-edge techniques for cancer are tried out. Such treatments include anti-angiogenesis drugs like thalidomide and biologic therapies agent interleukin 2. Pemetrexed (Alimta) is a new drug that has shown results in extending life.
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. Mesothelioma patients sometimes become involved in clinical trials in this area, and see benefits.
