Doctors who specialize in cancer treatment determine what course of treatment to administer for each patient. The options are endless. There are no universal treatment course for malignant mesothelioma cancer victims. This is due to the cancers high mortality rate, rareness, low treatment success rate, and small number of studies to provide meaningful statistics.

While prospects for patients with mesothelioma have been bleak, doctors have been making progress. Customary treatments for cancer are surgery (removing the tumor and the tissue that surrounds it), radiation (killing the cancerous cells with radiation), and chemotherapy (poisoning the cancerous cells.) Each one of these methods have problems. Mesothelioma patients treated with traditional radiation therapy have not responded well to it. Researchers are looking for ways of aiming radiation directly at the tumor in hopes that this will result in less damage to healthy tissue.

Surgery removes the mesothelial tissue around the tumor. The surgery is difficult and challenging, with unknown effects or benefits to patients. The usual chemotherapy cocktails effective on other cancers are not effective on mesothelioma, and combinations of chemotherapy agents have been tried, but without much success. Similar to radiation, focus in research is focusing on treating the physical location of the tumor with emphasis on the pleural cavity.

The high-mortality rate for mesothelioma patients means cutting-edge techniques for cancer are tried out. These techniques include a biologic therapy called the agent interleukin 2 and anti-angiogenesis drugs like thalidomide. The new drug pemetrexed (brand name Alimta) has shown good results in extending life with mesotheliomas..

Considered by oncologists is where the tumor is located, what stage the mesothelioma is in, and the age and health of the patient. Two therapies that are extremely cutting-edge in fighting cancer are called photodynamic and gene therapy. Patients afflicted with mesothelioma are benefitting in these clinical trials.