Time and Experience Helps Outcomes of Mesothelioma Surgery
(Courtesy Photo)
July 14, 2011
In today’s day and age, technology and medical phenomena are on the rise, especially within asbestos related illnesses and diseases. Mesothelioma, which can easily be contracted from exposure to asbestos, was once a death sentence, is now becoming more treatable. Those diagnosed with the disease have a longer chance of survival with new surgical techniques centered on trying to battle towards a cure for the disease.
With the help of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital located within Sydney, Australia, conclusions and survival numbers have increased greatly, as well as other treatments such as various therapies and surgeries has helped save, and lengthen the lives of many who have Mesothelioma. Over 540 consecutive patients possessing the disease were treated, and recorded to help authenticate the study, and bring new information to light.
The overall group was split in half with the first group being composed of those individuals having surgeries before 1999, and the second being after the date. However, the groups were also split besides the date of the procedures performed on them. The second group had a greater proportion of tumors on epithelial structures, but also would go through therapies and scans instead opposed to other forms of treatment available during the study.
One such treatment was known as extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), which is one of the most intense mesothelioma surgeries, is what patients within the second group also either went through or are planning to have conducted. In June of 2011, the Annals of Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgery bimonthly issue was released that contained the comparisons between the two groups of the mesothelioma patients. The author of the article stated that with the overall controlled study, four factors were associated independently within the overall outcome: the conducting surgeon’s experience with at least 100 cases or more, those patients who were treated with EPP, those patients who participated in pemetrexed chemotherapy, and particular epithelial subtypes.
Inevitably, those patients who was diagnosed with mesothelioma who were categorized within the second group had an overall greater chance of survival of the disease opposed to the patients who had treatment or surgeries before the date cutoff, 1999. Theorized by the authors, the advancement in therapies and new procedures within mesothelioma cases helped greatly better their chances.
The ending study showed that a patient’s survival rate that participates in EPP therapies had up to 20 months of survival in comparison to that of those who were treated by pleurodesis, which had a survival rate of 9 months.
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