A thinner peel to peel: Pleural thickness is prognostic in mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of A thinner peel to peel: Pleural thickness is prognostic in mesothelioma, by S.S. Groth, R.T. Ripley, B.M. Burt (The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, 2019).

The study

• Authors: S.S. Groth, R.T. Ripley, B.M. Burt
• Journal: The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
• Published: 2019;157(1):414-415
• Type of article: Editorial, Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is an editorial commentary, not a new study. Three authors from the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston wrote about a separate study by Hashimoto and colleagues, published in the same journal issue. That study looked at 104 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, mostly of the epithelial type (94.2%). The patients received neoadjuvant therapy (treatment given before surgery) and cytoreductive surgery at a single institution over about 10 years. According to the commentary, that study found that maximal tumor diameter and the sum of tumor thickness measured at several levels were independently associated with overall survival. Tumor thickness measured before neoadjuvant therapy was not prognostic. Thickness measured after neoadjuvant chemotherapy was associated with survival. The commentary authors read this somewhat differently from Hashimoto and colleagues. They suggested that the after-treatment measurement is more a surrogate for survival and may identify patients whose tumor responds to the chosen treatment. They expected that tumor thickness will likely be included in future clinical staging of this cancer. The commentary does not discuss asbestos exposure.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Editorial commentary on another study (Hashimoto and colleagues, J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2019;157:404-13); no new data collected by these authors
• Who was studied: No population studied by these authors. The study they commented on included 104 patients with predominantly epithelial (94.2%) malignant pleural mesothelioma, treated at a single institution over approximately 10 years
• Exposure: Not an asbestos exposure study. The commented-on study measured tumor (pleural) thickness on computed tomography in patients treated with neoadjuvant therapy and cytoreductive surgery
• Main results:
  • As reported in the commentary, Hashimoto and colleagues found that maximal tumor diameter and the sum of tumor thickness at multiple levels were independently associated with overall survival
  • As reported in the commentary, in the Hashimoto study tumor thickness before neoadjuvant therapy was not prognostic, but tumor thickness after neoadjuvant chemotherapy was associated with overall survival
• The authors' conclusion: The commentary authors interpreted the findings somewhat differently from Hashimoto and colleagues. They suggested that the sum of thickness after treatment is more a surrogate for survival and may identify patients whose tumor responds to the chosen regimen. They expected that tumor thickness will likely be incorporated into clinical staging of malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Lung cancer, Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Pleural Thickness, Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Prognostic Role of Programmed Cell Death 1 Ligand 1 in Resectable Pleural Mesothelioma — H.S. Lee, M. Hamaji, et al. (2021)
• A New Prognostic Score Supporting Treatment Allocation for Multimodality Therapy for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: A Review of 12 Years' Experience — I. Opitz, M. Friess, et al. (2015)
• Prognostic significance of metabolic response by positron emission tomography after neoadjuvant chemotherapy for resectable malignant pleural mesothelioma — Y. Tsutani, T. Takuwa, et al. (2013)
• Poor Prognostic Factors in Patients with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma Classified as Pathological Stage IB According to the Eighth Edition TNM Classification — T. Takuwa, M. Hashimoto, et al. (2018)
• Observer variability in mesothelioma tumor thickness measurements: defining minimally measurable lesions — S.G. Armato, A.K. Nowak, et al. (2014)
• Tumor incidence was not related to the thickness of visceral pleural in female Syrian hamsters intratracheally administered amphibole asbestos or manmade fibers — S. Adachi, K. Kawamura, et al. (1992)

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