Mesothelioma Treatment Options

As of yet, there is no cure for malignant mesothelioma. But, when it is diagnosed at an early stage, there are several treatments available. Most often, mesothelioma is treated with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy or a combination of the three.

Whether a patient should undergo these or similar treatments depends on the patient’s age and overall health, and the stage of the disease. When malignant mesothelioma has become too advanced, the appropriate step becomes focusing on relieving some of the cancer’s painful symptoms to make the patient more comfortable.

If you or a loved one from the Syracuse area has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the New York asbestos lawsuit lawyers of Belluck & Fox, LLP, can help. The firm’s team of NY personal injury attorneys, concentrating on mesothelioma and asbestos-related diseases, has successfully handled cases in every county in New York State, including Onondaga County. Belluck & Fox’s mesothelioma lawsuit attorneys provide professional, personalized advocacy for their Syracuse clients and can help you determine the legal options appropriate for you and your family.

For more information, use our online contact form or call Belluck & Fox, LLP’s mesothelioma lawyers toll-free from anywhere in New York at 877-MESOTHELIOMA (637-6843).

Mesothelioma Treatments – Traditional

Mesothelioma patients in Syracuse can expect to be counseled about three treatment options: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Physicians often will use a combination of these traditional techniques to maximize a patient’s chance of a successful recovery. Using all three, called “trimodal” therapy, is the most aggressive approach and often is the most effective.

Surgery

Surgery for mesothelioma is an effort to physically extract the cancer from the body. Unfortunately, mesothelioma tumors are usually large and difficult to completely remove.

The specific type of surgery would depend on the type of malignant mesothelioma and its location in the body, as well as the patient’s specific condition.

Surgeons practicing in Syracuse and elsewhere in upstate New York use a variety of procedures to eliminate cancerous growth or other disease. Surgery is considered “potentially curative” and is typically used in combination with other treatment options (known as multi-modal therapy), which are outlined below.

Surgical options include:

Pleurectomy/Decortication. This is removal of the membrane lining the lungs and chest cavity (the pleura) without removing the entire lung. A pleurectomy/decortication, the most common form of curative surgery, is performed most often on patients in the early stages of mesothelioma.
Debulking. This procedure seeks to remove as much of the cancer as possible, though complete elimination of the disease is not anticipated.
Extra-Pleural Pneuomonectomy (EPP). EPP is a radical approach involving the removal of the pleura, diaphragm, pericardium, and the whole lung on the side of the chest with the tumor(s). Most surgeons perform this operation infrequently, if at all; it is usually performed by one of the centers that specialize in this procedure.

Additional non-surgical therapies include:

Palliative Therapies

Palliative procedures are meant to provide relief from the pain. They treat symptoms of a disease, but do not address the underlying cause of patients’ suffering.

Pleurodesis & Chest Tube Drainage. Chemical pleurodesis prevents further accumulation of fluid between the two layers covering the lung. The drugs applied in this therapy irritate the tissue covering the lungs and obliterate the space between the layers of tissue. As the pleural space closes, a chest tube drains the chest cavity.
Pleuroperitoneal Shunt. Patients who don’t respond to chemotherapy, radiation or chemical pleurodesis may next try pleuroperitoneal shunting for its palliative effect. This therapy can help patients with a trapped lung, as well as those for whom other treatments have failed.

Chemotherapy

Using anticancer drugs to kill cancer cells, chemotherapy, is sometimes the primary treatment for mesothelioma victims in the Syracuse area, or it may be part of a multi-modal approach. “Chemo,” as it is sometimes called, is what’s known as a “systemic” treatment, meaning a drug is introduced into the patient’s bloodstream to travel throughout the body.

Chemotherapy drugs, which may be administered as a pill or an IV (intravenous) solution, stop the spread of cancer by attacking cancer cells.

Chemo is a means to shrink existing tumors (usually prior to surgery, i.e., “neoadjuvant therapy”), stop cancerous cells from spreading, and eliminate residual cancer cells after surgery (adjuvant therapy). Chemotherapy is not considered a “curative” approach for the treatment of mesothelioma.

Chemotherapy drugs may be injected directly into the chest or abdomen to treat cancer cells present in the chest without harming the body elsewhere. A therapy known as “heated intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy,” for example, involves injecting a drug directly into the abdomen after as much as possible of an abdominal tumor has been removed. The drug and heat together are thought to aid infiltration of the drug into tissue affected by cancer; the heat may also prove damaging to cancer cells.

Chemotherapy may involve more than one drug. Depending on the drugs, the dosage and the length of treatment, the mesothelioma patient may experience side effects.

Doxorubicin has historically been the most widely used drug for chemotherapy. Newer drugs preferred now and usually administered in various combinations, include cisplatin, carboplatin, epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, gemcitabine, ifosfamide, vinorelbine, paclitaxel, and methotrexate.

Radiation Therapy

Radiation shrinks tumors and destroys cancer cells by dosing them with high-energy x-rays. Therapy may be administered via an x-ray machine (external radiation) or radioactive materials applied through thin plastic tubes to cancer cells or tissue around the cancer (internal or implant radiation).

Radiation of pleural mesothelioma tumors usually causes some injury to nearby organs, such as the lungs, heart, and liver. However, radiation therapy can relieve pain very effectively for some patients. The size of the tumor(s) and the proximity of cancerous growth to vital organs must be considered in weighing the use of radiation therapy.

Mesothelioma Treatments – Non-Traditional

Photodynamic Therapy. This approach kills cancer cells with light waves. Photodynamic therapy is experimental for mesothelioma, but it has shown promising results in patients with other cancers. It’s thought that photodynamic therapy may be helpful in combination with surgery. In the procedure, a drug that makes cells sensitive to specific wavelengths of light, and which settles only in cancerous cells, is administered to the patient. Once the cancer cells have been photosensitized, fiber optic cables are placed in the body (usually through open-chest surgery) to allow the appropriate frequency of light to be beamed at the tumor. The photosensitizing drug then produces a toxic oxygen molecule that destroys the cancer cell.
Gene Therapy. Gene therapy is also experimental, and is now in clinical trials involving cancer patients. The theory is that altering genetic defects that allow tumors to develop is a viable means of targeting tumors without destroying healthy cells, as chemotherapy and radiation do. A “suicide gene” is inserted directly into the cancer tumor, which makes its cells sensitive to a drug that isn’t helpful otherwise. When the drug is administered to the newly sensitive cells, it destroys the cancer but doesn’t hurt healthy cells.
Immunotherapy (or biological therapy). Immunotherapy is intended to spur the body’s own immune system to fight cancer cells with biological response modifiers (BRMs) that are medically introduced into the patient’s body. Clinical studies underway for this experimental therapy have been promising, but they have also produced harmful side effects in patients.

Contact Our Syracuse, NY Asbestos Lawyers / Mesothelioma Attorneys

If you or a loved one from Syracuse has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the New York asbestos lawsuit lawyers of Belluck & Fox, LLP, can help. The firm’s team of NY personal injury attorneys, concentrating on mesothelioma and asbestos-related diseases, has successfully handled cases in every county in New York State, including Onondaga County. Belluck & Fox’s mesothelioma disease attorneys provide professional, personalized advocacy for their clients and can help you determine the legal options appropriate for you and your family.

For more information, use our online contact form or call Belluck & Fox, LLP’s mesothelioma lawyers toll-free from anywhere in New York at 877-MESOTHELIOMA (637-6843).