At the 2011 Focus on Mesothelioma Conference, Thoracic Surgeon and Conference Chair, Joseph Friedberg, MD, illustrated how the Penn Abramson Cancer Center’s multidisciplinary approach to cancer treatment extends to mesothelioma patients.
"Mesothelioma is not a disease for which there is one treatment,” he said, “It requires a team of experts using different modalities to develop the optimal treatment plan for each patient."
Advances in Chemotherapy for Mesothelioma
There are two major treatment approaches that are creating better outcomes for mesothelioma patients.- The use of more aggressive, innovative surgical techniques to treat primary pleural mesothelioma.
- Greatly improved options for chemotherapy.
Oncologist James Stevenson, MD, associate professor of medicine, discussed ways in which patients of different ages, gender, backgrounds and stages of their disease have all benefitted from the personalized, multidisciplinary approach to treating their mesothelioma. Every patient receives multiple treatments and all have survived for a number of years. These patients are not exceptions or unusual anecdotes. They represent the kinds of patients and the results that clinical programs such as the one at the Abramson Cancer Center expect to obtain.
The introduction of the drug Alimta® (pemestrexed) has in Stevenson's words, "changed the landscape" for treating pleural mesothelioma.
Alitma is more effective and less toxic than drugs that were previously used, and can be combined with other drugs.
Alimta also has another unusual advantage: Many drugs used to treat cancer work well for a period of time and then become ineffective as the cancer develops resistance to the drug. Once a cancer becomes resistant, the drug no longer works. Alimta, however, can be used to induce a remission. A patient can discontinue treatment and have the option of going back on Alimta if the cancer recurs with a good chance that the drug will be effective again. Clinical trials are also under way to determine whether Alimta can be used for long periods of time as maintenance therapy, or as a means of controlling the cancer as a chronic condition.
Learn more about mesothelioma treatment at the Abramson Cancer Center.
Watch all the presentations from the 2011 Focus On Mesothelioma Conference.
Penn's Abramson Cancer Center is a national cancer center in Philadelphia providing comprehensive cancer treatment, clinical trials for cancer and is a cancer research center. The National Cancer Institute has designated the Abramson Cancer Center a Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of only 40 such cancer centers in the United States.
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