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New mesothelioma treatments approaches
By Eden Ali | June 20, 2007
There are some new malignant mesothelioma treatments options that are presently undergoing tests. These malignant mesothelioma treatments options usually pair coventional mesothelioma treatments or they come up with something altogether new. These include:
1. Angiogenesis and anti-angiogenesis drugs
Eventhough successes have been seen in the techniques for the early diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma cancer, and also in better treatment options as soon as cancer is comfirmed, but despite all these, there are still a lot of cancers, mesothelioma cancers inclusive, that has no cure and is still very hard to efficiently treat.
Some few years ago, researchers have studied so much about how mesothelioma cancers cells vary from healthy normal cells, and in a struggle to discover drugs that have no possible severe chemotherapy side effects, have now uncovered drugs that are directed to the mesothelioma cancers themselves, while leaving the healthy, and normal cells of the body undamaged.
One of those groups of drugs are the anti-angiogenesis drugs. These drugs bring about the induction of blood-vessel growth, often in association with a particular organ or tissue, or with a tumour.
2. Heated intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy
The treatment option called heated intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy was brought about by Paul Sugarbaker at the Washington Cancer Institute. He eliminates as much of the tumor as he could remove, then directly administers a chemotherapeutic agent, heated in the abdomen to between 40 and 48°C. Then he perfused the fluid for about 60 to 120 minutes and then drains it.
This approach allows for the administration of high concentrations of some choice drugs into the pelvic and abdominal surfaces. Also heating the chemotherapeutic agent increases the drugs penetration into the tissues.
Also, the heat itself destroys the malignant cells more than the healthy cells.
Topics: Mesothelioma treatment ways |