A New Mesothelioma Risk Score for Patients with Pre-Treated Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

There has been some encouraging news for patients with pre-treated malignant pleural mesothelioma. A new mesothelioma risk score has been developed for pre-treated mesothelioma patients.

The new score is predictive of patient outcomes and it informs a better treatment strategy for second-line treatment. Results come from an international team of oncologists from Italy, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Greece, and Spain.

The Pre-Treated Mesothelioma Patient

The young (65 years or younger) mesothelioma patients who have received treatment once before are often called “pre-treated.” Clinicians often have more personalized data available for these patients. But there are many different factors that affect the clinician’s treatment strategy.

The best treatment for pre-treated mesothelioma patients is still up for debate. Many clinicians use a chemotherapy option. But, immunotherapy options have also proven effective second-line treatments.

Clinicians need a better way to consider all the options. This helps them to select the best treatment strategy for pre-treated mesothelioma patients.

A Mesothelioma Risk Score

The goal of Dr. Stahel’s study was to identify clinical and laboratory factors that could be used for prognosis or prediction. They looked at patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma undergoing second-line treatment.

A similar group tried to solve this problem earlier. The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) score system was validated in the first-line treatment of mesothelioma. It provides the best recurrence and progression prediction for those newly diagnosed.

Dr. Stahel’s team developed the new Mesothelioma Risk Score for the second-line treatment. This score is for patients pre-treated either with chemotherapy or immunotherapy. For this group, there are extra concerns to avoid overtreatment and optimize resources.

The new Mesothelioma Risk Score was recently published in Lung Cancer. It achieves better predictive results than the EORTC score alone for pre-treated mesothelioma patients.

The international team tested the new risk score on 144 patients participating in the ETOP 9–15 PROMISE-meso trial. The score works by looking at certain clinical factors in a patient’s history and the results of a blood test.

An international team of oncologists have proven a new Mesothelioma Risk Score for pre-treated mesothelioma patients. This new risk score is proven better than the existing EORTC score alone for cancer patients. This new score helps oncologists find the best treatment for pre-treated mesothelioma patients.

Source:

Banna, Giuseppe Luigi, Alfredo Addeo, Panagiota Zygoura, Zoi Tsourti, Sanjay Popat, Alessandra Curioni-Fontecedro, Ernest Nadal et al. “A prognostic score for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) receiving second-line immunotherapy or chemotherapy in the ETOP 9–15 PROMISE-meso phase III trial.” Lung Cancer (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lungcan.2022.05.018