Researchers are studying the effectiveness of a multimodal treatment for peritoneal mesothelioma. The therapy involves cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, or CRS-HIPEC. Peritoneal mesothelioma is cancer of the abdominal lining. It is caused by inhaled or ingested asbestos fibers that travel to the lining of the abdomen. Over time, these fibers cause DNA changes in cells, leading to cells turning into cancer. A mesothelioma diagnosis is bad news, but there is some good news for peritoneal mesothelioma patients. Peritoneal mesothelioma has a longer life expectancy compared to other forms of mesothelioma. Patients can live up to five years after diagnosis.
CRS-HIPEC uses two different treatments in conjunction with each other. Surgery is performed first, which helps the doctors remove all visible tumors. Heated chemotherapy is then circulated through the abdomen to kill as many remaining cancer cells as possible. The chemotherapy is heated because heat makes it more effective against cancer. The heat from the chemotherapy can kill cancer cells that regular chemotherapy cannot. The treatment regimen is very effective for treating peritoneal mesothelioma, but there is still not enough data to show how effective it is because peritoneal mesothelioma is such a rare cancer. Researchers therefore used data from the national registry in Spain.
Information from a 20-year time span was examined. The data had information on 4,000 surgeries done on 3,900 patients. People involved in the study were mostly women with an average age of 59 years. Mesothelioma was not the only cancer in the study. There was information on CRS-HIPEC being used on colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer, and gastric cancer. The procedure was effective at removing most of the cancer in over 80 percent of the patients. There were good survival rates, but there were complications in some patients. The average survival for peritoneal mesothelioma patients receiving CRS-HIPEC was five and a half years after starting treatment. Based on this information, it can be concluded that CRS-HIPEC is a safe option for people with peritoneal mesothelioma.
Research is an important part of the cancer treatment process. Thankfully, research is still being done on mesothelioma and other hard to treat cancers. This could one day ensure that people with mesothelioma will not have to die from the disease.
