Researchers who conducted a long-term study of chemotherapy treatment for mesothelioma have said that adding chemotherapy to an active symptom-control treatment regimen for malignant pleural mesothelioma appears to have little benefit.

The research appears in the May 17 issue of The Lancet. According to researcher Richard Stephens, of the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit in the U.K., the two chemotherapy regimens the research group investigated did not extend patients’ lifespans significantly and did not significantly improve quality of life.

However, a preliminary analysis of one chemotherapy drug used in the study—Vinorelbine (also known as Navelbine)—suggested the drug may have some benefits and should be further investigated. The current standard of care for people with mesothelioma is chemotherapy with Cisplatin and Pemetrexed.

The study was originally designed in the 1990s, and was planned as a comparison of various chemotherapy agents in conjunction with active symptom control. Active symptom control is the use of medications and procedures to control symptoms of pain and discomfort for people with malignant mesothelioma.

The drugs used in the trial were Vinorelbine, Mitomycin, Vinblastine, and Cisplatin.

Another trial, using Cisplatin and Ralitrexed (a drug which is no longer available) found that the combination of these two drugs did in fact provide a slightly extended lifespan.

However, the researchers found that for people who were already receiving active symptom control treatment, adding chemotherapy to the treatment regimen did not provide any statistically significant benefits.

The researchers point out that this doesn’t mean chemotherapy is useless in itself. Several studies have shown that two-drug chemotherapy treatment can extend a patient’s lifespan. In general, however, only two-drug chemotherapy can provide a benefit, whereas adding only a single chemotherapy agent to a treatment regimen has little beneficial effects.

Dr. Vogelzang, who led a trial using the Cisplatin and Pemetrexed combination, said in an article that accompanied the research report, “I believe that single-agent chemotherapy offers little to patients in the way of palliation or survival, since [active symptom control] plus Vinorelbine was statistically indistinguishable from [symptom control] alone.”

The research was financed by Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, the British Thoracic Society, and the June Hancock Mesothelioma Research Fund.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Mesothelioma Treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.