Patients now have better treatment options to increase their survival rates through the use of advanced treatment options. Patients with pleural mesothelioma have two surgical options both of which are painful and difficult for the patients. The doctor may recommend an extrapleural pneumonectomy which is a radical procedure involving removal of a lung, the diseased lining of the chest cavity and heart and a portion of the diaphragm or a pleurectomy/decortication, which strips away the mesothelioma tumors in the membrane lining in the lung but spares the lung. If surgery is not an option, other treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation are available for mesothelioma patients to improve survival chances. In addition to these traditional approaches to treatment, physicians at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center in Pennsylvania and the Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida use hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemoperfusion (HIPEC) to battle peritoneal mesothelioma. HIPEC involves bathing the abdomen with high doses of chemotherapy drugs to reach the tumors in the abdomen. Medical News Today reports researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center found patients who receive a chemo bath survived five times longer than patients who received the best alternative care. Every day more and more advancements are being made in mesothelioma research towards finding a cure and treatments, such as HIPEC, which are extending patients’ lives.
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