Big news! Research physicians at UPenn discovered that combining two forms of cancer treatment can increase the lifespan of mesothelioma patients dramatically. The study published in the June issue of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery shows that when photodynamic therapy is mixed with lung-sparing surgery (known as radical pleurectomy or RP) a mesothelioma patient’s life expectancy increases by at least a couple of years. The physicians are not certain how long to be exact because the patients who received the treatment are still surviving after two years.
The use of photodynamic therapy was used with a more radical surgical procedure known as extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) where the affected lung and surrounding tissue are removed. This combination did not receive results like the photodynamic therapy and lung-sparing surgery (RP).
"Unlike patients who receive traditional lung sacrificing surgery for mesothelioma, the patients in our study who underwent lung sparing surgery and photodynamic therapy, a light-based cancer treatment, have experienced unusually long overall survival rates. The median survival for those patients had not been reached at over two years when the results were analyzed. That's unusual in this field, especially when the majority of those patients are older and have advanced cancer," states Dr. Joseph Friedberg, the thoracic surgeon who performed the operations cited in the study, and the co-director of the Penn Mesothelioma and Pleural Program.
"In addition to the overall survival statistics, the difference between having and not having a lung, both with respect to the risk of surgery and the ability to enjoy a normal life after surgery, is crucial for these patients."
"In addition to the overall survival statistics, the difference between having and not having a lung, both with respect to the risk of surgery and the ability to enjoy a normal life after surgery, is crucial for these patients."
It seems as though that physicians still can’t pin down why this combination is working so much better.
“We were completely caught off guard when the analysis revealed a significantly longer survival for the patients who retained both lungs…Why this is happening is unclear and has emerged as the focus of our continuing research," said Dr. Friedberg.
I would like to send a personal congratulations to the doctors at Penn Medicine for this remarkable accomplishment. Hopefully, more mesothelioma research will be conducted, and more news such as this will break as we get closer and closer to finding a cure.
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