The best treatment for mesothelioma can depend on many factors. It might depend on someone’s health. It might also depend on the location of their cancer and how advanced their cancer is.
Unfortunately, mesothelioma can be especially aggressive. Often, someone may not even realize that they are sick until their cancer has progressed to an advanced stage, limiting the treatment options available to them.
However, there can still be hope. Researchers are always working to develop new mesothelioma treatments.
Some potential treatments currently being studied by Mayo Clinic researchers include:
- Intrapleural measles virus therapy–Using one disease to treat another may seem like questionable logic. However, researchers believe that they can use the measles virus to infect and kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells. They also think the virus would trigger someone’s immune system to kill new cancer cells.
- Pegylated arginine deiminase (ADI-PEG 20)– Researchers have discovered that malignant pleural mesothelioma requires an amino acid called arginine. ADI-PEG 20 is an enzyme that degrades this amino acid, so researchers believe that it could be used to starve the cancer cells of arginine until the cancer cells die.
- Radiation before surgery– While radiation and surgery are already treatment options, researchers believe that combining the two treatments may have better outcomes. Current research aims to determine the effects of a quick course of high-dose radiation treatment followed by surgery.
Many researchers are in pursuit of the next advancement in mesothelioma treatments, but their work takes time. Those who are interested in exploring some of these experimental treatments may consider participating in a clinical study. However, it is important to understand that the outcomes can be unpredictable since researchers are still trying to understand of the treatments being studied.