A study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Maryland
Medical System, the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Penn-Presbyterian
Medical Center, the University of Pennsylvania and the Hospital of the
University of Pennsylvania and published in the
Annals of Thoracic Surgery showed that a new treatment method can significantly extend the lifespan
of patients suffering from advanced cases of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM).
Patients who underwent this new treatment method, which combines surgery
that targets the cancer but saves the lung, photodynamic therapy and chemotherapy
lived for an average of nearly three years – 35 months, to be precise
and patients whose cancer had not yet reached their lymph nodes saw that
figure nearly double to an average of 7.3 years. Patients suffering from
this type of cancer who are only treated with chemotherapy have an average
lifespan of 12 to 18 months.
“This is among the most virulent cancers known to man, and we have
a long way to go, but it's encouraging to have achieved results we
can report in years not months even for these patients with such advanced
disease,” commented Joseph S. Friedberg, MD, the lead author of
the study and the Charles Reid Edwards Professor of Surgery and Head of
the Division of Thoracic Surgery at the University of Maryland School
of Medicine and Thoracic Surgeon-in-Chief of the University of Maryland
Medical System. “Although, from a technical perspective, it is more
challenging to save the lung than to sacrifice it, it does appear that
this technique helps to not only extend life but to also preserve quality
of life.”
You can read the full story,
published on December 14 on ScienceDaily, here.
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