Redefining Mesothelioma and Addressing Persistent Challenges
Hedy Lee Kindler, MD, shares new mesothelioma guidelines that have been released by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
In recent years, mesothelioma has shed its prefix as malignant mesothelioma and is now simply called mesothelioma. This is due to benign mesotheliomas being renamed mesothelial tumors.
In an interview, Hedy Lee Kindler, MD, shared this interesting update with Targeted OncologyTM, continuing its spread and broad adoption. In addition to a rename, new guidelines have been released by the American Society of Clinical Oncology for mesothelioma management, and Kindler is the lead author of this recent guideline update. Access the full coverage of this guideline update, here.
Mesothelioma is a rare cancer affecting approximately 2500 people every year in the US, Kindler stated. With this status, challenges remain in identifying pharmaceutical companies willing to fund and conduct trials evaluating the small molecular subsets. However, as breakthroughs in other solid tumor types are being further subdivided into smaller subsets, there is more opportunity for mesothelioma and thus more large-scale trials.
Trial designs such as the phase 1b BASKET trial have enabled investigators to enroll molecular subsets of mesothelioma into these types of studies to gain further information that can potentially lead to new treatments.
Kindler also discussed the controversial role of surgery in mesothelioma management that the guidelines addressed. Although the randomized phase 3 MARS-2 trial (NCT02040272) suggested that there is no role for surgery in mesothelioma treatment, Kindler and researchers further evaluated the data and believe surgery still has a role. Kindler stated that “not every patient who is anatomically receptible should get surgery, but there are patients with good prognostic criteria who should be seen by a surgeon, and the surgery should be performed at a center with experience, [in this type of surgery].”
Kindler is also a professor of medicine in the section of hematology/oncology and associate dean for clinical science research and human subjects at The University of Chicago, Biological Sciences Division.
