Hacker Speak

Oncologists and other cancer doctors decide what type of treatment to go with for a patient. There are many options. There are no standard treatment course for asbestos cancer sufferers. 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.

The prospects for mesothelioma patients have been grim, but doctors have recently made progress. Customary treatments for cancer are surgery (removing the tumor and the tissue that surrounds it), radiation (killing the cancerous cells with radiation), and chemotherapy (poisoning the cancerous cells.) Each one of these methods have problems. Patients with mesothelioma have not responded well to traditional radiation therapy. In hopes to lessen damage to healthy tissue, researches are studying ways to aim radiation right at the tumor.

The mesothelial tissue around the tumor is removed by surgery. This surgery is extensive and it is not clear how much the patient benefits. Common chemotherapy drugs that work on other types of cancer usually do not work on mesothelioma, and different mixtures of these drugs have not been successful. Like radiation, researchers are focusing their work on controlling the physical location of the treatment with an 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).

Considered by oncologists is where the tumor is located, what stage the mesothelioma is in, and the age and health of the patient. Two exotic ways of attacking mesothelioma are gene therapy and photodynamic therapy. Mesothelioma patients sometimes become involved in clinical trials in this area, and see benefits.