The Lucky Cabin

Oncologists determine what kind of treatment to pursue with their patient. The options are endless. There is no standard treatment option for peritoneal mesothelioma 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.

Mesothelioma patients have historically had a bleak outlook, but doctors have recently made progress. Customary treatments for cancer are surgery (removing the tumor and the tissue that surrounds it), chemotherapy (poisoning cancerous cells) and radiation (killing cancer cells with radiation) Each one of these methods have problems. Patients with mesothelioma have not responded well to traditional radiation therapy. Researches, concerned about damage to healthy tissue, are looking for ways to aim radiation directly at tumors.

Surgery removes the mesothelial tissue around the tumor. The surgery is difficult and challenging, with unknown effects or benefits to patients. Most chemotherapy medication that work on other cancers typically do not work on mesothelioma, and different mixtures of these drugs have not been successful. Similar to radiation, focus in research is focusing on treating the physical location of the tumor with emphasis on the pleural cavity.

Many advanced techniques in cancer treatment are tried on mesothelioma patients because of its high fatality rate. Such treatments include anti-angiogenesis drugs like thalidomide and biologic therapies agent interleukin 2. 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. Two exotic ways of attacking mesothelioma are gene therapy and photodynamic therapy. Clinical trials using these techniques are being offered to some of those who have mesothelioma.