Radiation Therapy Do Little to Help those Suffering with Mesothelioma, However Gene Therapy May Be a Promising Alternative
Oncologists and other cancer doctors choose what type of treatment to prescribe to their patient. There are numerous options. There are no standard treatment regimen for peritoneal mesothelioma 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.
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. 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 removes the mesothelial tissue around the tumor. This surgery is extensive and it is not clear how much the patient benefits. The usual chemotherapy cocktails effective on other cancers are not effective on mesothelioma, and combinations of chemotherapy agents have been tried, but without much success. 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. A new drug that has shown results in improving survival is pemetrexed (brand name Alimta).
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. Clinical trials using these techniques are being offered to some of those who have mesothelioma.
