Mesothelioma Treatment Guidelines Not Followed Often Enough

Too many patients with pleural mesothelioma are going without treatment recommended by National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines, according to a recent study at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Valuable survival time is being lost. The Annals of Thoracic Surgery published the study that looked at disparities in compliance with national treatment guidelines and their impact on overall survival. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network, along with the American Society of Clinical Oncology, recommends multimodal therapy — surgery, chemotherapy and possibly radiation therapy — for mesothelioma patients with the epithelial cell subtype who are healthy enough to tolerate the surgery. Research was done by a team of thoracic surgeons and medical oncologists at Cedars-Sinai, which launched a multidisciplinary specialty program recently for pleural mesothelioma. “The amount of under treatment we saw [in the study] was surprising,” Dr. Harmik Soukiasian, director of thoracic oncology, told The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com. “I had hoped to see people getting all the treatment required, at a higher percentage, than they currently are.” Recommendations Lead to Longer Survival The retrospective study used 3,419 patients from the National Cancer Database participant user file. All were in clinical stages I, II or III and included epithelial (68.5%) sarcomatoid (17.2%) and biphasic (14.3%) subtypes. Adherence to the recommended therapy, which differed w...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Source Type: news