Mesothelioma | Mesothelioma

"Delays for whatever reason should be avoided."Dr.

De Ruysscher of University Hospital Maastricht, The Netherlands and colleagues note that without treatment, tumor progression in SCLC is rapid and median survival may be as low as 2 months.To examine treatment factors that influence survival, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 4 phase III trials involving more than 1000 patients for whom 5-year survival data were available.

Patients received chest radiotherapy and platinum-based chemotherapy.The timing of chest radiation and the start of any treatment until the end of chest radiotherapy (SER) was the most important predictor of outcome.

There was a significantly higher 5-year survival in patients in the shorter SER arms of the studies (relative risk 0.62).Five-year survival was more than 20% when the SER was less than 30 days.

However, the researchers calculated that each week of extension of the SER beyond that in the study arm with the shortest SER, caused an absolute decrease of 1.83% in 5-year survival.The novel parameter SER, "which takes into account accelerated proliferation of tumor clonogens during both radiotherapy ...

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