Combined chemotherapy in pleurectomized malignant pleural mesothelioma patients

A phase II clinical trial of 20 cancer patients who presented with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) between November 1991 and April 1993 was conducted. Of the histologically proven cases, 16 (80%) were epitheloid and 4 (20%) were mixed type MPM. Patients were treated with mitomycin C, cisplatin, and alpha interferon after pleurectomy. Our schedule consisted of 10 mg/m2 mitomycin C i.v. infusion, 50 mg/m2 cisplatin i.v. infusion, 10 mil Ur-alpha interferon i.m. and 10 mil Ur-alpha interferon i.v. infusion on the first day of treatment. Patients were given a mean of 4.5 chemotherapy cycles (range: 2-6). None of the patients showed complete or partial response. Stable disease was observed in 15 patients, while 5 patients had progressive courses. The overall median survival time after chemotherapy was 12 months (range: 3-31 months). Median survival after chemotherapy was 15 months (range: 4-31 months) in the stable disease group (n:15, 75%), and 5 months (range: 3-13 months) in progressive cases (n:5, 25%). The overall survival rates were 55% [95% Confidence Interval (CI):43%-88.8%] at one year and 15% (95% CI:5%-39.1%) at 2 years. Five patients had grade 3 alopecia, three had grade 2 vomiting and nausea, two had grade 2 leukopenia, one had grade 2 cardiotoxicity and another had discoloration on his fingernails. In our multimodal therapy protocol, we found no difference in survival and relapse rates between our combined modal therapy and other single modal therapies in the literature.