Improved Survival for Mesothelioma Patients with Multimodal Treatment
By Kathy Cooke. 2nd November 2013
Lung doctors specialising in the treatment of Mesothelioma patients have recently published a study investigating the factors that affected the survival time of a group of Mesothelioma patients treated over a 21 year period at their centre in Turkey.
The research team at the Department of Chest Disease undertook a retrospective analysis of 400 patients with Malignant Mesothelioma arising from the pleura of the lungs treated at their centre between January 1989 and April 2010.
The patients were categorised into four groups depending on the regime used to treat the mesothelioma: namely those treated with best supportive care; surgical intervention; chemotherapy and finally the group treated with multimodality therapy e.g. surgery plus chemotherapy.
Patient statistics such as age, previous asbestos exposure, whether the patient had been a smoker, the histological subtype of the disease and the general fitness of the patient (Karnofsky performance status) were available to the research team also.
The mean survival time for Mesothelioma patients included in the study was just over one year (12.32 months).
Different Mesothelioma Treatment Regimens had Different Survival Times
Significant differences were found in the mean survival time between the four different treatment regimens as follows:
- Patients treated with best supportive care had a mean survival time of less than one year (10.5months).
- Patients treated with surgical intervention had an improved mean survival time of 15.7 months.
- Patients treated with chemotherapy alone had a similar mean survival time of 16.02 months.
- Those patients treated with a multimodality regime had the greatest mean survival time of over 2 years (26.55 months).
Interestingly those patients treated with the newer chemotherapy regime of Cisplatin and Pemetrexed (brand name Alimta) had a mean survival of 18.43 months compared with the lower time of 16.02 months for patients treated with a previous chemotherapy regime of Cisplatin and Gemcitabone.
This study is in line with others by suggesting that treating patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma using multimodality treatment regimes and new chemotherapy drugs such as Pemetrexed can be helpful in improving survival time.
We have been advising victims of mesothelioma for over 10 years. If you have a questions about claiming for the disease, call the number below and ask for Kathy Cooke or Warren Miller.
Ref: Abakay et al (2013) Effects of treatment regimens on survival in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci. 2013 Jan;17(1):19-24.
Author
Kathy Cooke MA. BSc
Cancer consultant and advisor
Kathy has worked in the cancer field for over 30 years. She was course leader for the MSc in Radiotherapy and Oncology at University of Hertfordshire. Then pre-treatment radiotherapy manager at the Cromwell Hospital in London and Partnership Quality Lead for Macmillan Cancer Support.. Read more >
