Is Curing Mesothelioma Possible?

A stealthy and lethal disease

Malignant mesothelioma is aggressive, deadly, and incurable. And, it does its destructive work silently. Ingested asbestos can lie dormant in the body for decades. Even when it begins to develop, mesothelioma often produces no symptoms, or at least none that would send you to a doctor. This is especially unfortunate because the best chances for treating mesothelioma symptoms are when the disease is in an early stage, before it has spread.

Generally, treatments for mesothelioma alleviate symptoms and extend the lifespan of victims of pleural, pericardial, or peritoneal mesothelioma.

Susceptibility to treatment

While no cures are available for pleural, peritoneal, or pericardial mesothelioma, a mesothelioma patient’s treatment and longevity depends on several factors. These include the cancer’s size, spread, location, and cell type.

Determining mesothelioma tumor size and spread

There are currently several systems used to identify the size and spread of mesothelioma tumors been developed. Several mesothelioma stage identification systems are recognized are applied for pleural mesothelioma diagnosis. Stages have not been as clearly defined for other types of mesothelioma because they are much rarer. These staging systems categorize the invasiveness of the tumor by identifying the possibility of the tumor’s surgical removal and lymph node involvement, generally:

During Stages I and II, the tumor can be removed surgically.
In Stage III, the tumor cannot be removed.
In Stage IV, the disease has also spread to other parts of the body.

Perhaps the most widely used of these staging systems was developed by the International Mesothelioma Interest Group, was adopted by the American Joint Committee on Cancer. It is called the TNM Staging System because it is based on Tumor size and spread to nearby organs, spread to lymph Nodes, and Metastasis to other organs. The TNM stages have recently been modified and updated by the International Mesothelioma Interest Group.

Location of tumors

Pleural mesothelioma patients have longer life expectancies than patients with peritoneal, pericardial, or testicular mesothelioma. But there are no cures for pleural mesothelioma.

Patients with pleural mesothelioma may benefit from combination treatment with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Their median life expectancy is patients about a year and a half.
Peritoneal mesothelioma does not respond as well—life expectancy with this form is usually somewhat less than a year.
Pericardial and testicular mesothelioma are even harder to treat and carry a life expectancy of about six months.

Mesothelioma cell types

Finding cures for mesothelioma is complicated because there are several mesothelioma cell types, each of which may respond differently to treatment:

Epithelial mesothelioma cells. Epithelial cells are seen in most mesothelioma cases. These cells are the most responsive to mesothelioma treatments. So, mesothelioma patients whose cancers are of the epithelial type have longer survival times than those who have other forms. However, epithelial mesothelioma cells are difficult to distinguish from those found in adenocarcinoma, a type of lung tumor. This sometimes results in misdiagnosis and delays in treatment, making the prognosis more negative.
Sarcomatoid mesothelioma cells. Sarcomatoid mesothelioma cells are seen in only about ten percent of cases. The cells are highly aggressive and resistant to treatments.
Biphasic mesothelioma cells. Biphasic cells are a mixture of epithelial and sarcomatoid cells. Because each type exists in clumps, a biphasic diagnosis is sometimes missed when tissue samples are taken from only a small number of areas.

Research into finding cures for mesothelioma

Medical science has not given up on finding cures for mesothelioma. Clinical trials are ongoing, and several approaches are considered promising:

Photodynamic therapy—using light energy to kill cancer cells, but only when it has not yet spread
Gene therapy—using genetic material to target cancer cells and make them more susceptible to chemotherapeutic drugs
Immunotherapy—using the patient’s own immune system to kill the cancer