Oncologists and other cancer doctors decide what type of treatment to prescribe to each patient. There are many options. There exists no regular treatment regimen for peritoneal mesothelioma cancer victims. 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.
While prospects for patients with mesothelioma have been bleak, doctors have been making progress. Treatments for cancer are traditionally surgery (taking out 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. In hopes to lessen damage to healthy tissue, researches are studying ways to aim radiation right at the tumor.
Surgery removes the mesothelial tissue around the tumor. The surgery is difficult and challenging, with unknown effects or benefits to patients. The usual chemotherapy cocktails effective on other cancers are not effective on mesothelioma, and different combinations of chemotherapy drugs have been tried without a lot of success. Like radiation, researchers are focusing their work on controlling the physical location of the treatment with an 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. Such treatments include anti-angiogenesis drugs like thalidomide and biologic therapies agent interleukin 2. The new drug pemetrexed (brand name Alimta) has shown good results in extending life with mesotheliomas..
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. Clinical trials using these techniques are being offered to some of those who have mesothelioma.
