Factors influencing malignant mesothelioma survival: a retrospective review of the National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank cohort

Abstract

Background: Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is a rare but deadly malignancy with about 3,000 new cases being diagnosed each year in the US. Very few studies have been performed to analyze factors associated with mesothelioma survival, especially for peritoneal presentation. The overarching aim of this study is to examine survival of the cohort of patients with malignant mesothelioma enrolled in the National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank (NMVB). Methods: 888 cases of pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma cases were selected from the NMVB database, which houses data and associated biospecimens for over 1400 cases that were diagnosed from 1990 to 2017. Kaplan Meier’s method was performed for survival analysis. The association between prognostic factors and survival was estimated using Cox Hazard Regression method and using R software for analysis. Results: The median overall survival (OS) rate of all MM patients, including pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma cases is 15 months (14 months for pleural and 31 months for peritoneal). Significant prognostic factors associated with improved survival of malignant mesothelioma cases in this NMVB cohort were younger than 45, female gender, epithelioid histological subtype, stage I, peritoneal occurrence, and having combination treatment of surgical therapy with chemotherapy. Combined surgical and chemotherapy treatment was associated with improved survival of 23 months in comparison to single line therapies. Conclusions: There has not been improvement in the overall survival for patients with malignant mesothelioma over many years with current available treatment options. Our findings show that combined surgical and chemotherapy treatment in peritoneal mesothelioma is associated with improved survival compared to local therapy alone.

Orphan Designation and Cisplatin/Hyaluronan Complex in an Intracavitary Film for Malignant Mesothelioma

“…Early diagnosis is so rare that mesothelioma treatment is usually unable to provide a complete cure. Even in early-stage disease, the prognosis remains grim with an overall median survival time of 9–12 months [ 20 , 21 ].…”

Predictors of Lung Cancer Risk: An Ecological Study Using Mortality and Environmental Data by Municipalities in Italy

“…However, the results by gender should be handled with care. While gender is known to be a factor influencing mesothelioma survival rates (see e.g., [38]), which may suggest that related death counts may reflect a differential exposure to asbestos, we need to point out that mesothelioma counts are quite low for women and, therefore, the corresponding impact estimate may not be considered as robust as that for men (as suggested by the wider confidence interval). In addition, the results have to be evaluated considering the different latency period between asbestos exposure and mesothelioma or lung cancer occurrence [39][40][41].…”

Multiple institutions’ research findings using the National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank

“…In a cancer history classification study, 26 we applied Natural Language Processing (NLP), a modern Artificial Intelligence technique, to automatically classify personal and family history from free-text medical reports of mesothelioma patients, with a high accuracy. In another study, 27 we conducted a retrospective review of the NMVB cohort, and identified factors influencing malignant mesothelioma survival, including age (younger than 45), gender (female), epithelioid histological subtype, staging (I), peritoneal occurrence, and having the combined treatment of surgical therapy with chemotherapy. Moreover, for malignant pleural mesothelioma, we developed a novel computational algorithm that automatically discovered 364 potential protein-protein interactions, of which five interactions (BAP1-PARP3, KDR-ALB, PDGFRA- ALB, CUTA-HMGB1, and CUTA-CLPS) were validated experimentally; our comparative transcriptiome analysis identified five potentially repurposable drugs targeting the interactome proteins (cabazitaxel, primaquine, pyrimethamine, trimethroprim, and gliclazide).…”