Prognosis Statistics - Survival rates
Survival rates from specific clinical trials
Prognosis Statistics - Survival rates
Prognosis Statistics - Other factors
Prognosis Statistics - Clinical trials
Although there are results from quite a few trials available, they are often quite small studies involving fewer than 20 patients or so. We have picked the trials below to report because they are large. The larger the trial, the more reliable the results are likely to be.
At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, doctors followed 120 patients, with different types of pleural mesothelioma, from 1980-1995. All these patients were treated with surgery to remove the lung and pleura (pleural pneumonectomy), followed by a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, with or without immunotherapy. 54 out of the 120 (45%) patients in this trial were alive 2 years later and 26 out of the 120 (22%) patients were alive 5 years later.
Patients with sarcomatoid and mixed mesothelioma had a poorer prognosis. Of the patients with these types of mesothelioma only 20% were alive 2 years later and by 5 years later, all had died.
Patients with epithelioid type tumours and no cancer in the lymph nodes had a much better outlook. Nearly 3 people out of every 4 (74%) were alive 2 years later and more than 1 person in every 3 (39%) alive 5 years later. (The full results of this trial are published in the February 2002 edition of the medical magazine Seminars in Oncology, volume 29, issue 1, pages 41-50.)
Another study looked at survival with mesothelioma in an area of North West Italy. This is called a population study. The researchers look at the records of everyone diagnosed with the disease in a given area. This study looked at an area with a total population of 4.5 million. Throughout the world, this is the second largest, of 3 population based studies about mesothelioma survival. All three studies have had similar results. One year after diagnosis, on average, 1 in every 4 people (24%) with pleural mesothelioma and 1 in every 3 people (34%) with peritoneal mesothelioma were still alive. (The full results of this trial are published in the July-August, 2002 edition of the Tumori Journal, volume 88, issue 4, pages 266-9).
