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For decades, mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer caused by asbestos exposure, has caught people unaware, and many go about their daily lives without knowing they have been infected, making it one of the most challenging cancers to treat.
While previous developments in healthcare have improved standard therapies, such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, to increase the survival rate, this improvement has been only average even after diagnosis. However, in recent years, a new frontier in cancer care has begun to reshape the landscape, and personalized medicine is now a beacon of hope for mesothelioma treatments.
What Is the Science Behind Personalized Medicine?
Previous mesothelioma treatments are often similar to the traditional approach for any cancer patient, regardless of specific biological differences, which involves surgery to remove tumors, chemotherapy drugs, and radiation therapy. While some patients responded well, others experienced little benefit or suffered severe side effects with minimal improvement.
However, personalized medicine is taking a deeper dive to address the root cause of each problem, alongside finding solutions by examining the molecular and genetic makeup of each patient’s cancer, followed by identifying mutations, protein markers, and immune characteristics unique to an individual’s tumor.
After doing this, doctors can then select or design treatments that target those specific traits. While some of these drugs already exist for treating other cancers, researchers are adapting them for use in mesothelioma. Below are insights into this approach and how oncologists are tailoring treatment plans for patients.
1. Artificial Intelligence and data
AI has steadily made its way into healthcare, marking a significant breakthrough and potential alternative for addressing long-term cancer research. Now, AI can process vast amounts of genomic and clinical data, identifying patterns that suggest which treatments are most effective for specific tumor profiles.
Medical experts and international mesothelioma registries are working alongside these tools to help researchers build databases that connect patient genetics with treatment outcomes, giving oncologists more insight when designing personalized treatment strategies.
2. Immunotherapy and genetic insights
Another key development linked to personalized care is immunotherapy, especially since it addresses treatments that target patients' immune systems to fight cancer. While not all patients respond positively to immunotherapy, but by analyzing tumor biomarkers, it allows doctors to predict which patients are most likely to respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Some of these approaches would require authorization from the government, which is why the FDA approved the combination of Opdivo and Yervoy for unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma, marking the first major advance in front-line treatment in nearly two decades.
3. Clinical trials
Personalized medicine has had its share of constant failure, which has been a pivotal attribute shaping researchers' testing combinations of immunotherapies, targeted drugs, and genetically based treatments specifically tailored to mesothelioma’s unique biology. With many clinical trials such as tumor vaccines still being explored, there is a chance that a definitive approach to tackling these tumor growths will be developed more effectively.
Endnote
One of the major challenges in finding a definitive approach to tackling mesothelioma is the difficulty in collecting large genetic datasets compared to more common cancers. However, the progress still continues, and by decoding the unique biology of each tumor, researchers and physicians are rewriting how this rare cancer is understood and treated.
