Part of The Mesothelioma Center. Contact Us
Mesothelioma-Line.com.
Journal Articles on Mesothelioma: Cancer Information for Patients and Families

Journal Articles on Mesothelioma: 'Radiation' Category


Radiation news feed.

September 2nd, 2008. Recent advances in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma

Vorinostat, a small molecule inhibitor of HDAC, which targets select members of class I and II HDACs, has shown early evidence of activity and is currently being evaluated in a randomized study for patients who progress with standard therapy for advanced mesothelioma. It is hoped that the HDAC inhibitors and other novel targeted agents will pave the way for improved outcomes for patients with this disease.

July 29th, 2008. Open lung-sparing surgery for malignant pleural mesothelioma: the benefits of a radical approach within multimodality therapy

Conclusion: If a patient with epithelioid MPM is fit enough to tolerate a thoracotomy then macroscopic clearance of the tumour is the preferred option as part of a multimodality regime including chemotherapy.

July 9th, 2008. Malignant mesothelioma: current status and perspective in Japan and the world

In this context, combination therapy with surgery plus chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy is currently considered the standard treatment for patients with respectable MPM. A national survey of EPP was conducted recently in Japan, and a few multicenter clinical trials will start soon.

June 24th, 2008. Multimodal Therapy for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma Including Extrapleural Pneumonectomy

During the follow-up duration of 23 months, 3 patients (18 %) developed distant metastasis and one (6 %) a mediastinal local recurrence. Multimodal therapy of malignant pleural mesothelioma including extrapleural pneumonectomy should only be performed in specialised centres for thoracic surgery where uncomplicated interdisciplinary communication is the rule and which provide the required expertise in patient selection, operative technique and postoperative care.

June 6th, 2008. Long-term mortality from pleural and peritoneal cancer after exposure to asbestos: Possible role of asbestos clearance

The risk for pleural cancer, rather than showing an indefinite increase, might reach a plateau when a sufficiently long time has elapsed since exposure. The different trends for pleural and peritoneal cancer might be related to clearance of the asbestos from the workers' lungs.

June 4th, 2008. Malignant mesothelioma 2008

Novel therapies including intrapleural chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy and hyperthermic perfusion have also been used with some success. Finally there are several attempts at immunomodulating and targeted treatments, which are in phase I/II trials.

June 4th, 2008. Prophylactic radiotherapy for pleural puncture sites in mesothelioma: the controversy continues

thoracoscopic) pleural puncture sites and reserving treatments to symptomatic deposits may be more appropriate. This strategy would optimize patient care and minimize hospital visits, but allow prompt instigation of treatment if symptoms develop.

June 3rd, 2008. Underestimation of Low-Dose Radiation in Treatment Planning of Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy

Conclusions: Secondary radiation from MLCs contributes a significant portion of low dose in IMRT plans. Dose underestimation could occur in conventional IMRT dose calculations if such low-dose radiation is not properly accounted for.

May 20th, 2008. Active symptom control with or without chemotherapy in the treatment of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MS01): a multicentre randomised trial

Interpretation: The addition of chemotherapy to ASC offers no significant benefits in terms of overall survival or quality of life. However, exploratory analyses suggested that vinorelbine merits further investigation.

May 15th, 2008. Ranpirnase (Onconase), a cytotoxic amphibian ribonuclease, manipulates tumour physiological parameters as a selective killer and a potential enhancer for chemotherapy and radiation in cancer therapy

Conclusion: In animal studies, improvements in tumour physiology (i.e., increased blood flow, inhibited oxygen consumption, increased oxygenation and decreased tumour hypertension) and selectively enhanced radiation responses (i.e., increased radiation sensitivity and inhibited repair of sublethal and potentially lethal damage) were observed after ranpirnase treatment in preclinical tumour models. Ranpirnase is a promising candidate as an enhancer for radiation- and chemotherapy. Ongoing clinical trials promise to further improve the treatment of mesothelioma and lung cancer.

April 25th, 2008. Individual versus standard quality of life assessment in a phase II clinical trial in mesothelioma patients: Feasibility and responsiveness to clinical changes

Conclusion: The SEIQoL assessment seems to be feasible within a phase II clinical trial, but may require more effort from staff. More distinctive QoL changes in accordance with clinical changes were measured with the RSCL. Our findings suggest that the two measures are not interchangeable: the RSCL is to favor when mainly information related to the course of disease- and treatment is of interest.

April 10th, 2008. Surgical Treatment in the Management of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: A Single Institution’s Experience

Conclusions: In highly selected patients local control can be achieved with combination therapy but is accompanied by a high rate of (surgical) complications. Distant failure rates warrant further studies exploring the role of systemic chemotherapy while the use of cytoreductive surgery with intraoperative chemoperfusion for MPM is not supported.

April 3rd, 2008. The role of muscle flap in preventing bronchus stump insufficiency after pneumonectomy for malignant pleural mesothelioma in high-risk patients

There was no early or late stump insufficiency during the 15-month follow-up. Surgical techniques using muscle flap seems to play a major role in the prevention of bronchus stump insufficiency especially after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy.

April 1st, 2008. Combined resection, intraperitoneal chemotherapy, and whole abdominal radiation for the treatment of malignant peritoneal mesothelioma

Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, intensive multimodality therapy appears feasible and effective in this group of patients.

February 29th, 2008. Local recurrence of tumor at sites of intervention in malignant pleural mesothelioma

LD was not associated with the stage of the disease. The most suitable candidate groups for PR are patients receiving supportive therapy, thoracotomy without multi-modal therapy or patients with sarcomatous and mixed cell type tumors.

February 27th, 2008. Review: intracavitary radioimmunotherapy to treat solid tumors

RIT may have potential for palliation in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma or malignant pleural effusion. The future of RIT may, therefore, not only be in the inclusion in contemporary multimodality treatment, but also in the expansion to palliative treatment.

February 22nd, 2008. Pleural mesothelioma: impact of the staging for the therapeutic strategy

Indeed if new balistic assessment of the disease improves the efficacy of radiotherapy and new combined chemotherapy have shown antitumoral responses, surgical strategy takes part in the armamenterium for this disease and combined with others therapeutic modalities seems to be a raisonnable approach despite the lack of prospective, comparative, randomized study and the drawback of current staging. However, the most important point is the multidisciplinary concertation induced by the management of this disease which represents a "model" in thoracic oncology.

February 19th, 2008. Malignant pleural mesothelioma: multidisciplinary experience in a public tertiary hospital

Conclusions: In the cases studied, an integrated multidisciplinary approach was used, and a highly complex hospital infrastructure was available for the diagnosis and treatment of MPM, as recommended in the literature. However, the mean survival was only 11 months, reflecting the aggressiveness of the disease.

February 19th, 2008. Pericardial malignant mesothelioma: a latent complication of radiotherapy?

Radiotherapy and asbestos exposure are both associated with pericardial mesothelioma and the aetiology in this case was not clear. The condition carries a poor prognosis and is invariable fatal although newer chemotherapeutic regimens have prolonged survival times.

February 11th, 2008. Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy for Resected Mesothelioma: The Duke Experience

Conclusions: With limited follow-up, 45-Gy IMRT provides reasonable local control for mesothelioma after extrapleural pneumonectomy. However, treatment-related pulmonary toxicity remains a significant concern. Care should be taken to minimize the dose to the remaining lung to achieve an acceptable therapeutic ratio.