Cancer treatments specialists have begun to see success with several new methods of treating patients with a deadly form of cancer known as mesothelioma. Preliminary test results suggest that the new mesothelioma treatments may help in extending the lives of patients with the disease, or of stabilizing their condition or shrinking the size of their tumors.

Researchers in Tennessee found that a combination of the drugs lovastatin and interferon was able to significantly improve the condition of a woman with advanced mesothelioma symptoms. Although the woman’s tumor had almost completely filled the chest space in her right lung by the time her condition was diagnosed as mesothelioma, doctors were able to decrease the size of her tumor and improve her symptoms after two months of treatment.

A report in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics suggests that treatments which target the protein mesothelin may also help patients with mesothelioma. Mesothelin is only found in small quantities in healthy patients, but occurs in much higher quantities in patients with mesothelioma or other forms of cancer. Researchers are examining antibodies which would bypass normal cells and target the mesothelin protein to determine if they would be effective in treating mesothelioma patients.

European scientists have also found that a form of surgery may help to extend the lives of individuals with mesothelioma when combined with other forms of treatment. A study presented at the 2009 European Multidisciplinary Conference in Thoracic Oncology found that a surgical procedure known as pleurectomy/decortication—which involves the removal of the outer lining of the lungs—was effective at treating some mesothelioma sufferers when used in combination with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Patients who received this threefold treatment had a three year survival rate of 43%. Because many patients do not receive a mesothelioma diagnosis until they are in the advanced stages of the disease, many survive for less than one year after learning that they have the disease.