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New Tool Estimates Survival in Mesothelioma Patients

ByHolly Zink
New Tool Estimates Survival in Mesothelioma Patients
Researchers in China have developed a new tool to estimate survival in patients with mesothelioma. This will help doctors to create effective treatment plans for mesothelioma patients.
 
A Rare Form of Cancer
 
Mesothelioma is a rare cancer that affects almost 2,000 Americans every year. Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos. The WHO predicts that cases of mesothelioma will be more common in the future. The five-year survival rate for mesothelioma patients is less than 10%.
 
Mesothelioma is hard to diagnose because it takes a long time to develop symptoms. By the time a doctor diagnoses a patient with mesothelioma, it can be difficult to treat.
 
Limited treatment options are available for mesothelioma. Treatment plans usually include many types of therapies like chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation.
 
A Helpful New Tool
 
The authors of this new study created a tool to predict a patient’s chances of surviving mesothelioma. They created the tool with patient data from a database called SEER. This database provides information on cancer statistics in the United States.
 
This is the first study to use information from SEER to create a tool to predict patient survival for mesothelioma.
 
The authors searched SEER for mesothelioma patient data between 2010 and 2015. They used data from 1,978 mesothelioma patients to create this new tool.
 
The authors divided the collection of patient data into two groups. The authors analyzed one group to design the tool. They used the other group to check the accuracy of the tool.
 
The tool uses eight pieces of information about an individual patient to predict survival:
 
  1. How old the patient is
  2. The gender of the patient
  3. Whether the patient has insurance
  4. The type of mesothelioma the patient has
  5. Whether the patient can receive chemotherapy
  6. Whether the patient can receive surgery
  7. How big the mesothelioma tumor is
  8. How much the mesothelioma tumor has spread in the patient’s body
The tool is available online for any doctor to use with their mesothelioma patients. The authors hope for more studies to improve the accuracy of the tool in the future.
 
Source
 
Chen S, Yu W, Shao S, Xiao J, Bai H, Pu Y, Li M. Establishment of predictive nomogram and web-based survival risk calculator for malignant pleural mesothelioma: A SEER database analysis. Front Oncol. 2022 Oct 7;12:1027149. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.1027149. PMID: 36276110; PMCID: PMC9585232.

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