SEER Study: Surgery Still Extends Mesothelioma Survival

Aggressive surgery at a specialty center could more than double the survival period of a patient diagnosed today with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Surgery may buy precious time. Although oncologists and patients often advise and opt against it, surgery remains an effective tool that significantly extends lives, according to an analysis of 14,228 mesothelioma patients across the U.S. The sample of patients is among the largest in similar studies. "There are limitations to the data, but people just do better with surgery," thoracic surgeon Andrea Wolf, of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, told Asbestos.com. "No matter how you slice it, surgery seems to improve survival." The analysis revealed a median survival of 14.5 months for patients who had surgery but 6.5 months for those who did not. There was a five-year survival rate of 15 percent for those who underwent surgery and less than 1 percent for those who did not. Only 23 percent of the patients in the analysis had surgery. The sampling was taken from 1973-2009 as part of the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. PLOS One, a multidisciplinary Open Access Scientific Journal, published the Mount Sinai Medical staff analysis in December 2015. SEER Cancer Database Is All-Inclusive The SEER database includes a wide sampling of unselected cancer patients who share pleural mesothelioma tumor characteristics at diagnosis. All cell types of mesothelioma were used in the analys...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Research & Clinical Trials Source Type: news