Multimodal treatment for resectable epithelial type malignant pleural mesothelioma.
BACKGROUND
Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a rare malignancy. The outcome remains poor despite complete surgical resection.


METHODS
Eleven patients with histologicaly proven epithelial type malignant pleural mesothelioma undergoing extrapleural pneumonectomy with systemic chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy before and after surgical resection were retrospectively reviewed.


RESULTS
Ten out of 11 patients underwent complete surgical resection, of these 7 patients had stage I disease. Of these 7 patients, 5 are alive without any recurrence, a 2-year survival rate of 80% was observed in this group. There was no operative mortality or morbidity.


CONCLUSIONS
Extrapleural pneumonectomy with perioperative adjuvant treatment is safe and effective procedure for epithelial type malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Yoshino
Ichiro
I
Department of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan. iyoshino@surg2.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp
Yamaguchi
Masafumi
M
Okamoto
Tatsuro
T
Ushijima
Chie
C
Fukuyama
Yasuro
Y
Ichinose
Yukito
Y
Maehara
Yoshihiko
Y