Chemotherapy and immunotherapy of malignant mesothelioma

A combination of cisplatin and doxorubicin appears to be the most effective treatment to obtain tumour response, and the best single agent appears to be cisplatin, with objective response rates of about 28 and 23%, respectively.

A systematic review including 85 studies with a total of 2317 subjects was abstracted in DARE. Cisplatin combined with doxorubicin had a better overall response rate than cisplatin alone (28.5% versus 23.2%; P=0.22) or doxorubicin alone (28.5% versus 11.3%; P<0.001). Patients on cisplatin had a significantly better response rate than patients who had neither cisplatin nor doxorubicin (23.5% versus 11.6%; P<0.001).

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by the possibility of publication bias (only studies published in full were included).

Ədəbiyyat

1. Berghmans T, Paesmans M, Lalami Y, Louviaux I, Luce S, Mascaux C, Meert AP, Sculier JP. Activity of chemotherapy and immunotherapy on malignant mesothelioma: a systematic review of the literature with meta-analysis. Lung Cancer 2002 Nov;38(2):111-21.