. Mesothelioma Treatment

A. Mesothelioma Treatment

The conventional therapies are not very successful for the mesothelioma treatment. The survival time for the patients is only 6 -12 months. The malignancy of the mesothelioma is affected by many factors. One such thing is the long latency period between disease development and exposure to the asbestos.
B. Surgery

Surgery is one of the treatments on mesothelioma. The surgery can be performed alone or in combination with post and pre operative adjuvant therapy. But the results of the surgery attempted either alone or with post and pre operative therapy is found to be disappointing because the survival rate of the patients [five years] is less than 10%. The most common surgery is pleurectomy. Here the lining of the chest is completely removed. Extra pleural pnemorectomy is not very common.
C. Radiation Therapy

Mesothelioma is highly resistant to radiation therapy. But still this treatment is attempted to reduce the sufferings that arise because of mesothelioma growth. This radiation therapy is applied chest drain insertion site most commonly. This prevents the tumor growth along the wall of the chest.D. Chemotherapy

Pemetrexed is the drug that was approved by the food and administration of United States of America in the year 2004 for the treatment of pleural malignant mesothelioma. Pemetrexed is administered with cisplatin. In order to reduce the side effects of the pemetrexed, folic acid is used.
E. Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is the other treatment option for mesothelioma. Immunotherapy produces variable results. Bacillus calmette- Guerin is found to effective in boosting the immune response for the cancer of the urinary bladder. But the same therapy attempted for mesothelioma provides no relief to the patients. Vitrolysis by LAK cells [followed by interleukin- 2 activation] is effective in destroying the mesothelioma cells.

But the biggest disadvantage here is that the suffering of the patients because of the side effects of this therapy. This treatment was really stopped because of the very serious side effects of the interleukin-2 toxicity. The most common side effect is cachexia and fever. Interferon alpha is really producing encouraging results of late. There is nearly fifty percent reduction in the tumor mass. The side effects are very, very less in this therapy.