Mesothelioma Survival Rates Improve Over Time
Mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of certain areas of the body including the lungs, abdomen, heart, and testicles, is a severe and deadly disease caused by asbestos exposure. It is known to have a low survival rate for those diagnosed with the disease. There are multiple factors that affect the life expectancy of mesothelioma sufferers. These include the stage at diagnosis, the tumor location, cell type, and the patient’s overall health. Coexisting conditions can also play a role in how long someone lives after a mesothelioma diagnosis. Other factors include age, cancer type, gender, genetics, health, and lifestyle.
Historically, mesothelioma has been a hard cancer to treat, and the life expectancy and survival rate have been very low. Between the years 1999 and 2020, the overall mortality rate of general mesothelioma has decreased. The mortality of pleural mesothelioma in ages 65 and older has increased at a rate of 7.7 percent annually since 2010. Survival rate and life expectancy data are based on a group of studied mesothelioma cases. Prognosis is unique to individual cases. Together, these pieces of information help patients better understand the outlook of their case. A mesothelioma diagnosis was once a death sentence, but scientific advances are changing this. Survival rates have improved, particularly for malignant pleural mesothelioma and peritoneal mesothelioma.
Different advancements in treatment have greatly improved the survival rate of mesothelioma patients. When treatment for mesothelioma was first discovered in the 1940s through the 1960s, the survival rates were low but improved due to surgery. Surgery to remove the lung (pneumonectomy) and remove the lining of the lung (pleurectomy) began in the 1940s. Surgery to remove fibrous tissue (pleurectomy and decortication) began in the 1960s. Robotic surgery has also advanced, helping surgeons become more accurate when performing surgery. There have also been advances in chemotherapy and radiation. Between the 1970s and the 1990s various chemo drugs treated mesothelioma. They had response rates from 20 percent to 40 percent, making doctors want to find better options. In 2004, the FDA approved Alimta (pemetrexed) with cisplatin for people with pleural mesothelioma, especially for people who could not receive surgery. Cisplatin and Alimta are now the most common therapy for the disease. Chemotherapy is also now used alongside immunotherapy. Heated or hypothermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, known as HIPEC, which combines heated chemotherapy and surgery, is considered a gold standard treatment for peritoneal mesothelioma.
Survival rates are a way to measure how many people survive a certain type of cancer over time. They cannot tell you exactly what will happen with any one person, but they can help give you a better understanding of how likely a treatment will be successful. A relative survival rate compares people with the same age and stage of a certain cancer, in this case pleural mesothelioma, to people in the overall population. For example, if the 5-year relative survival rate for a specific stage of pleural mesothelioma is 30 percent, it means that people who have that cancer are, on average, about 30 percent as likely as people who do not have the cancer to live at least five years after being diagnosed. Numbers come from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, maintained by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), to provide survival statistics for different types of cancer. The SEER database tracks 5-year relative survival rates for pleural mesothelioma in the United States, based on how far the cancer has spread. The SEER database does not group cancers into AJCC TNM stages (stage 1, stage 2, stage 3). Instead, it groups cancers into localized, regional, and distant stages. Localized means cancer is limited to the pleura, regional means cancer has spread to nearby structures or to nearby lymph nodes, and distant means cancer has spread to distant parts of the body such as the abdomen, bones, or pleura on the other side of the body.
Before treatments became widely available for mesothelioma, the 5-year survival rate for completely untreated or unmanaged pleural mesothelioma was nearly zero percent, with very few exceptions being recorded in medical texts. An MD Anderson Study that reviewed cases between 1977 and 2009 showed that untreated patients survived an average of just 6.4 months. Thoracic surgery data from 2019 also found from a review of 3,419 patients that opted against receiving treatment that they had an overall survival of 10.2 months. Treatments for mesothelioma continue to progress and improve, making mesothelioma more treatable over time. Mesothelioma is still a deadly disease, but treatments are always being investigated, and treatments are being improved year after year. If treatments continue to be improved, the survival rate could greatly improve.
The 5-year relative survival rate for pleural mesothelioma based on people diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma from 2015 to 2021are the following: for the Localized SEER Stage, the survival rate is 23 percent, for the Regional SEER Stage the survival rate is 15 percent, and for the Distant SEER Stage the survival rate is 11 percent. For all SEER stages combined, the survival rate is 15 percent. The numbers only apply to the stage of the cancer when it is first diagnosed. They do not apply if the cancer later grows, spreads, or comes back after treatment. The numbers also do not take all factors into account. Survival rates are grouped based on how far the cancer has spread, but someone’s age, overall health, type of mesothelioma, how resectable the cancer is, how well it responds to treatment, and other factors are not measured. People diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma today might have a better outlook than these numbers show. Treatments continue to improve over time, and these numbers are based on people who were diagnosed and treated at least five years earlier.
Researchers have continuously looked to advance treatments and find better ways to help people with mesothelioma. Many ongoing clinical trials are testing ways to make current therapies more effective or introduce emerging completely new treatments for mesothelioma. One clinical trial that is being performed currently is utilizing Keytruda alongside radiation therapy to treat pleural mesothelioma. The Phase I trial is trying to find out the highest possible safe dose of intensity-modulated radiation when combined with immunotherapy. The goal is also to improve progression-free survival. Another trial is looking at sarcomatoid mesothelioma, which is known to be harder to treat. In this Phase II trial, doctors are testing whether adding surgery after immunotherapy with Opdivo and Yervoy can help stabilize the disease. With new treatments being studied, mesothelioma experts encourage early diagnosis and public awareness. Early diagnosis gives people the greatest shot at living longer lives and improving survival rates.
Were you exposed to asbestos and later diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer? Contact us today to see if you could be entitled to compensation. Call 412-471-3980 or fil out our contact form and a member of our team will get back to review your case.
