title: New therapeutic options for mesothelioma.
abstract: Malignant pleural mesothelioma is an aggressive thoracic tumor that is often refractory to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, making long-term survival a difficult goal. Although multimodality therapies, including cytoreductive surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, have been tested, their survival benefit is unclear. Recently, novel cytotoxic agents such as pemetrexed have shown promise in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma, and in early trials new small-molecule agents targeted to the specific biochemical properties of this tumor have shown promise.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. rkg2@duke.edu
authors.forename: Ranjit Kumar
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Goudar
mesh_terms: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D006801:Humans; D008654:Mesothelioma / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000601:surgery; D020360:Neoadjuvant Therapy; D010778:Photochemotherapy; D010997:Pleural Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000601:surgery
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents