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Mesothelioma
Treatment
Articles
and Abstracts
Advances
in the treatment of malignant pleural
mesothelioma
Chest
1999 Aug;116(2):504-20
Sterman
DH, Kaiser LR, Albelda SM
Division
of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care
Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Medical Center, Philadelphia 19104, USA.
sterman@mail.med.upenn.edu
Malignant
pleural mesothelioma is a neoplasm that is
commonly fatal and for which there are no
widely accepted curative approaches.
Mesothelioma is unresponsive to most
chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimens,
and it typically recurs even after the
most aggressive attempts at surgical
resection. Multimodality approaches have
been of some benefit in prolonging
survival of very highly selected subgroups
of patients, but they have had a
relatively small impact on the majority of
the patients diagnosed with this disease.
As the incidence of pleural mesothelioma
peaks in the United States and Europe over
the next 10 to 20 years, new therapeutic
measures will be necessary. This review
will discuss the roles of chemotherapy,
radiotherapy, surgery, and combined
modality approaches in the treatment of
pleural mesothelioma, as well as
scientific advances made in the past
decade that have led to the development of
experimental techniques, such as
photodynamic therapy, immunotherapy, and
gene therapy, that are currently
undergoing human clinical trials. These
promising new avenues may modify the
therapeutic nihilism that is rampant among
clinicians dealing with
mesothelioma.
PMID:
10453882
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