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The Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida is pursuing a new approach to mesothelioma treatment that involves cutting down on high doses of chemotherapy in order to lengthen patients’ lives and improve their quality of life. Generally with higher levels of chemotherapy, there are unfavorable side effects that leave patients feeling ill and weak. Adaptive therapy looks to lower doses of chemotherapy in order to prevent further killing of healthy cells.
Commonly, cancer is treated with the highest dose of chemotherapy a patient can tolerate in order to kill off malignant cells. When this occurs, however, healthy cells are also killed and chemotherapy resistant cells remain unaffected. In the short-term, this is an effective method, but over time the cancerous cells that are resistant to the treatment multiply and spread out in the body. Healthy cells that are destroyed by high doses of chemotherapy are no longer available to fight the metastasized cells.
Adaptive therapy is based around the idea of keeping as many healthy cells alive as possible in order to fight the chemotherapy resistant cells. This is achieved by first gauging the tumor’s size. After this is determined, the next step resides in attacking the tumor with a high dose of chemotherapy while the tumor is in its growth phase. While this sounds like the traditional approach, after the initial high dose, the dosage is then weakened as the tumor gets smaller.
The benefits of adaptive therapy versus the common approach are that toxicity levels in the body are reduced through the lesser dosage of chemotherapy. This effectively leads to a better quality of life due to the lessening of side effects. More healthy cells survive the reduced dosage and are then able to fight the tumor from enlarging.
Clinical trials are now being held to test drugs that further suppress the killing off of healthy cells during treatment. If the trials are a success, mesothelioma treatment and other types of cancer remedies could be revolutionized with this newer method.
Mesothelioma is a very serious form of cancer caused from exposure to asbestos. If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, you are urged to contact Philadelphia asbestos lawyers at Brookman, Rosenberg, Brown & Sandler so that we may fight for your right to the financial compensation you deserve. To schedule a confidential consultation, call us today at 800-569-0899 or contact us online. We represent mesothelioma patients throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania.