Combo Treatment for Mesothelioma in Abdomen Helps Some Patients Live Longer
Thursday, January 21st, 2010Researchers say they’ve achieved some success at extending the lives of patients suffering from peritoneal mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the lining of the abdomen, with a combination of surgery and chemotherapy.
In the December 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers at eight medical research universities in the U.S., Italy, France, Germany, and Australia reported that of 405 patients treated for peritoneal mesothelioma, the overall median survival rate was 53 months, and 47 percent of the patients were alive after five years.
Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer caused by inhaling asbestos fibers. Patients usually don’t experience symptoms until 30 years or longer after exposure to asbestos.
Doctors treated most of the patients with a combination of surgery to remove cancerous tumors from the lining of the abdomen and a procedure called hyperthermic interperitoneal chemotherapy. After removal of visible tumors, the patient’s abdominal cavity was bathed for several hours in a heated chemotherapy solution to treat remaining cancer cells while the patient was in the operating room.
The high temperature of the chemotherapy solution has been found to increase its therapeutic effect. Both heat and direct contact with chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells. Clinical studies have shown the hyperthermic interperitoneal chemotherapy to be more effective than surgery alone in treating gastrointestinal cancers that have spread to the abdomen. It can also help reduce pain.
Of the patients whose treatments were analyzed in the study, 372 patients or about 92 percent received hyperthermic interperitoneal chemotherapy. Researchers followed up with the patients on average about two and half to three years after their surgery.
Nine patients had died following the surgery. Sixty percent of the patients were still alive three years after surgery and 47 percent were alive after five years. Of those 187 patients had complete or near complete removal of cancerous tumors.
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The researchers said that several factors appeared to be associated with the improved survival rate, including the absence of cancer having spread to the lymph nodes, the completeness of the tumor removal and the chemotherapy treatment.
The researchers said their data suggested that surgery to remove mesothelioma tumors in the abdomen combined with the chemotheraphy prolonged survival in selected patients.
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