Integrating data from multidisciplinary Management of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: a cohort study

Smoking Habit and Respiratory Function Predict Patients' Outcome after Surgery for Lung Cancer, Irrespective of Histotype and Disease Stage

BACKGROUND

Growing evidence suggests that sublobar resections offer more favorable outcomes than lobectomy in early-stage lung cancer surgery. However, a percentage of cases that cannot be ignored develops disease recurrence irrespective of the surgery performed with curative intent. The goal of this work is thus to compare different surgical approaches, namely, lobectomy and segmentectomy (typical and atypical) to derive prognostic and predictive markers.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Here we analyzed a cohort of 153 NSCLC patients in clinical stage TNM I who underwent pulmonary resection surgery with a mediastinal hilar lymphadenectomy from January 2017 to December 2021, with an average follow-up of 25.5 months. Partition analysis was also applied to the dataset to detect outcome predictors.

RESULTS

The results of this work showed similar OS between lobectomy and typical and atypical segmentectomy for patients with stage I NSCLC. In contrast, lobectomy was associated with a significant improvement in DFS compared with typical segmentectomy in stage IA, while in stage IB and overall, the two treatments were similar. Atypical segmentectomy showed the worst performance, especially in 3-year DFS. Quite unexpectedly, outcome predictor ranking analysis suggests a prominent role of smoking habits and respiratory function, irrespective of the tumor histotype and the patient's gender.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the limited follow-up interval cannot allow conclusive remarks about prognosis, the results of this study suggest that both lung volumes and the degree of emphysema-related parenchymal damage are the strongest predictors of poor survival in lung cancer patients. Overall, these data point out that greater attention should be addressed to the therapeutic intervention for co-existing respiratory diseases to obtain optimal control of early lung cancer.

Unprecedented long-term survival in a patient with malignant pleural mesothelioma treated with subsequent systemic chemo- and immunotherapeutic regimens

Pleural mesothelioma is a rare disease with a dismal prognosis and few therapeutic options. Until recently the median overall survival for a pleural mesothelioma patient was up to 2 years, with few exceptional cases of patients achieving a longer survival. Here, we report the clinical case of a patient whose survival spanned over 10 years. The patient underwent several systemic treatments, including three different chemotherapy lines (cisplatin-pemetrexed, vinorelbine and platinum rechallenge) and two immunotherapy regimens using immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti CTLA-4 tremelimumab and anti PD-1 nivolumab). At the time this report was written, the patient was off-treatment, asymptomatic and with a stable radiological disease. Our case demonstrates that a prolonged survival with a preserved quality of life may be reached in selected patients through the exploitation of the available treatments in an expertise setting.

Survival analysis and development of a prognostic nomogram for patients with malignant mesothelioma in different anatomic sites

Background

Malignant mesothelioma (MMe) is a rare and fatal cancer with a poor prognosis. Our study aimed to compare the overall survival (OS) of MMe patients across various sites and develop a prognostic model to provide a foundation for individualized management of MMe patients.

Methods

From the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, 1,772 individuals with malignant mesothelioma (MMe) were identified. The X-tile software was used to identify the optimal cut-off point for continuous variables. The Kaplan–Meier method was employed to compare the survival of MMe across different sites. The Cox proportional hazards model was applied to identify the independent risk factors of overall survival (OS) and a nomogram was constructed.

Results

In the survival analysis, MMe originating from the reproductive organs and hollow organs showed a relatively better prognosis than those originating from soft tissue, solid organs, and pleura. Age, gender, location, histological type, grade of differentiation, extent of disease, lymph node status, lymph node ratio (LNR), and chemotherapy were all found to be independent risk variables for the prognosis of MMe patients (P<0.05) in a multivariate Cox analysis and were included in the construction of nomogram. In the training and testing sets, the C-index of the nomogram was 0.701 and 0.665, respectively, and the area under the ROC curve (AUROC) of the 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival rate was 0.749, 0.797, 0.833 and 0.730, 0.800, 0.832, respectively. The calibration curve shows that the nomogram is well-calibrated.

Conclusions

This is the first research to examine the prognosis of MMe patients based on the location. However, previous studies often focused on malignant pleural mesothelioma or malignant peritoneal mesothelioma with high incidence. Furthermore, a nomograph with good prediction efficiency was established according to the variables that influence patient survival outcomes, which provides us with a reference for clinical decision-making.

Feasibility and safety of extended pleurectomy/decortication for malignant pleural mesothelioma. A single group experience

Surgery is part of a multimodal therapeutic approach to malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) although its real beneficial effect is still controversial. The optimal precise sequence of treatments within the trimodality is unclear, and should be decided upon a multidisciplinary consensus for each individual patient. Here, we analyzed the perioperative data of 19 MPM patients who underwent extended pleurectomy/decortication (EPD) with curative intent. The mean age at diagnosis was 67 years; 11 males and eight females. Ten patients were diagnosed with MPM via medical thoracoscopy (MT), and nine via video‐assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). The vast majority of cases harbored epitheliod forms. We compared neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) followed by surgery (11 cases) versus surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT, 8 cases) within a 3‐year period. All patients had extended pleurectomy/decortication and none had an extended pneumonectomy. Analysis of survival curves suggested that the short‐term outcomes are better with upfront EDP followed by ACT if compared to EDP preceded by NCT. Although limited, the data highlighted the safety and feasibility of EPD, with manageable postoperative complications and no major burden for the patients.