Welcome! This blog”Mesothelioma Future” has been created as a forum where Mesothelioma patients and their family members can share their experiences and discuss how they have coped or are coping with this disease. The blog also provides practical advice on how to deal with the emotional and physical pain of Mesothelioma as well as the various types of support you may need and how to get them.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Mesothelioma Survival Rates

Mesothelioma survival rate

Mesothelioma survival rate

Survival rate of mesothelioma is the, " percentage of people who live for a period of time after diagnosis".  According to the American Cancer Society, malignant mesothelioma is a deadly disease. Survival rate of one-year pleural mesothelioma is about 73%. Unfortunately, less than 12% survive more than five years.

What are the survival rates for mesothelioma?

The survival rate generally refers to the percentage of people with cancer who live one year and five years after the initial diagnosis. These measures are called one-year and five-year mesothelioma survival rates.

When discussing survival rates, you may hear other related terms such as life expectancy, which is the average lifespan of a person based on the year of birth, current age, gender and other factors.
Mesothelioma affects life expectancy because cancer reduces the number of years a patient is expected to live.

    Factors affecting mesothelioma survival rates

    There are several things that affect how long a person will live after a diagnosis of mesothelioma.

    Individual characteristics and survival of mesothelioma
    • Location of the tumour
    • Stage of the disease
    • Mesothelioma cell type
    • Age at diagnosis and overall health
    • Sex
    • Race/Ethnicity
    An analysis in 2018, a total of 888 cases in the National Virtual Mesothelioma Bank cohort identified median overall survival of 15 months, on average, and peritoneal patients combined.

    The most important factors associated with better survival were age (under 45 years), female sex, epithelioid cell type, stage 1 disease, peritoneal occurrence and treatment combining surgery with chemotherapy.

    Mesothelioma tumor location

    There are four types of mesothelioma, and the site of cancer origin affects patient outcomes. Survival is much better for peritoneal patients.

    Advanced peritoneal peritoneal chemotherapy called hypertheroneal intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) has significantly improved survival rates for this cancer.

    The procedure combines cytoductor surgery with heated chemotherapy. Not everyone qualifies for this aggressive procedure, but more than half of them live at least five years.

    A meta-study published in 2015 in Translational Oncology analyzed 20 years of data collected from 1992 to 2012. The five-year survival rate for peritoneal mesothelioma patients was more than five times higher than the rate for pleural patients.

    Mesothelioma Survival Rates By Site
    Year(s)PleuralPeritoneal
    1 year73%92%
    3 years23%74%
    5 years12%52%
    10 years4.7%39%

    Pericardial mesothelioma is very rare, with only 200 cases documented in the medical literature. It grows on the lining of the heart and has a average survival ranging from six weeks to 15 months.The other two types of asbestos-related cancer are pericardial and testicular. Together, they account for less than 2% of all cases. Median survival for testicular mesothelioma, the rarest type, is 24 months.


    Pericardial mesothelioma is very rare, with only 200 cases documented in the medical literature.

    It grows on the padding of the heart and has a median survival ranging from six weeks to 15 months.

    Stage of the disease
    The phase of cancer at diagnosis is a strong prognosticator of overall survival. People with stage 1 mesothelioma, before the spread of cancer, have the best survival rates. Early-stage patients who receive a rapid treatment experience have improved survival.

    They are more probably to be entitle for surgery and other vigorous treatments. More aggressive therapies are associated with better results.

    Most cases of pleural mesothelioma are not diagnosed before stage 3 or stage 4. At these stages, the tumor is large or has spread beyond the original cancer site. Diagnosis at later stages means that the disease is more difficult to treat and is associated with lower survival rates. There is no established cancer screening system for peritoneal mesothelioma. Some researchers have developed their own systems based on the staging of the TNM. In TNM, the size of the tumor, the involvement of the lymph nodes and metastasize (spread of cancer) to describe the extent of the cancer. One example is the Peritoneal Cancer Index (ICP), which places this type of tumour in three stages instead of the usual four for other cancers. A 2011 international study of 294 patients treated with cytoreducor surgery and HIPEC used CPI to describe patient survival.
    Peritoneal Mesothelioma Survival by Peritoneal Cancer Index (PCI) Staging
    PCI StageYear 1Year 5
    Stage 195%87%
    Stage 287%53%
    Stage 366%29%
    Pleural mesothelioma has no favourable survival rates compared to peritoneal disease survival rates. Pleural disease may be more difficult to treat.

    Often, patients are not diagnosed early enough to receive the most aggressive cancer treatments and may not be healthy enough to withstand invasive surgeries in particular.
    Pleural Mesothelioma Median Survival by Stage
    Stage 1Stage 2Stage 3Stage 4
    22.2 months20 months17.9 months14.9 months
    Source: “The IASLC mesothelioma staging project,” Journal of Thoracic Oncology, 2016.


    Mesothelioma cell type (tumor histology)

    The type of mesothelioma cell, or tumor histology, influences patient survival. Cancer has three types of primary cells: Epithelioid, sarcomatoid and biphasic.

    The most common and least aggressive cell type is epithelioid. It responds best to treatment. The median survival for patients with epithelioid is 12 to 24 months.

    Sarcomatoid mesothelioma is the most aggressive type of cell. Patients with Sarcomatoid mesothelioma diagnosis have a median survival of six to eight months.

    Biphasic tumors have epithelioid and sarcomatoid features. More epithelial cells means a better prognosis. If the tumor is mainly sarcomatoid cells, life expectancy is decreased. Patients with a biphasic cell diagnosis have a median survival of about 13 months.

    Age at diagnosis and overall health

    Older mesothelioma patients have lower survival rates, on average, compared to younger patients. More than 55% of patients diagnosed before the age of 50 live one year. Less than 30% of patients aged 75 and over live the same time.
    One-Year Mesothelioma Survival by Age
    Age Range1-Year Survival Rate
    < 5057.2%
    50 – 6451.2%
    65 – 7440.9%
    75+28.5%
    Patients diagnosed before the age of 50 have about a 25% chance of surviving a decade. This falls to 5.4% for patients aged 50 to 64.

    The five-year survival rate for mesothelioma patients diagnosed between the ages of 65 and 74 is 6.7%. This rate drops to 3.8% in people 75 years of age and older at the time of diagnosis.

    Older patients tend to be less healthier than younger patients, which indicates that they are capable for more aggressive and effective therapies.

    Younger patients are also less likely to suffer from other chronic diseases such as lung disease, diabetes or a history of other cancers. Better overall health also allows you to register for clinical trials.

    Gender

    Most asbestos exposures occur in the workplace. Industrial jobs traditionally held by men are at the highest risk. This helps to explain why men account for the majority of all cases. However, although men suffer most of the disease, women with mesothelioma appear to survive longer than men in spite of age, stage of cancer, race or form of treatment. For each age group studied in the SEER program, women fared significantly better than men. 
    Mesothelioma Survival Rates by Gender
    Gender1 Year2 Years3 Years4 Years5 Years
    Males37.6%17.4%10.4%7.7%5.9%
    Females45.4%29.3%22.2%18.6%16.0%
    There are several possible reasons why women do better than men. Some researchers believe that improved survival could be explained by hormonal differences between the sexes. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, too. This type of tumor has better survival compared to pleural tumors, which are more common among men. This distorts survival rates to favour women living longer, on average.

    Race/Ethnicity 

    Mesothelioma is almost exclusive to white individuals, who account for 95% of patients. Part of this difference is because black and Hispanic individuals are less likely to be diagnosed with any form of cancer, including mesothelioma. In addition, non-white people, historically, may have been less likely to work in industrial jobs associated with high exposure to asbestos. SEER data show that blacks and Hispanics account for only 8% of all cancer diagnoses. 
    Mesothelioma Survival Rates by Race
    Race1 Year2 Years3 Years4 Years5 Years
    White*39.7%20.2%12.9%9.8%7.8%
    Black and Hispanic35.2%21.4%16%14.3%12%

    A 2015 study of 13,734 cases of pleural mesothelioma in the SEER database found that black patients lived longer than white patients, although they were less likely to undergo aggressive surgery. Typically, patients who have surgery survive longer than people who don't.

    How do mesothelioma survival rates apply to me?

    Thanks to advances in mesothelioma treatments, many patients are beating prognoses and living beyond average survival rates.

    Cancer survival rates also do not reflect recent advances in treatment, such as immunotherapy and other targeted therapies available in clinical trials.

    Survival rates only include people diagnosed in the past. Anyone diagnosed today may have more treatment options available and a better prognosis in the future.

    What measures can improve mesothelioma survival rates?

    Many long-term mesothelioma survivors attribute their living success with the disease to a multidisciplinary approach to treatment. Many in this group include the following factors such as helping them to do well after diagnosis.

    Seeking care and treatment from mesothelioma specialists

    • Clinical Trials
    • Seeking references for exercise and rehabilitation to rebuild strength
    • Making nutritional changes to improve health and well-being
    • Try complementary and alternative therapies in conjunction with, but not instead, conventional cancer treatment


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