Clinical practice guidelines for malignant pleural mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Clinical practice guidelines for malignant pleural mesothelioma, by N. van Zandwijk (Journal of Thoracic Disease, 2013).

The study

• Author: N. van Zandwijk
• Journal: Journal of Thoracic Disease
• Published: 2013;5(6):724-5
• Cited by: 4 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Summary of the article

This editorial introduced clinical practice guidelines for malignant pleural mesothelioma published in the Journal of Thoracic Disease. The author, of the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute in Concord, Australia, described malignant pleural mesothelioma as the most common type of mesothelioma and a nearly invariably lethal tumour of the pleura. He noted that it was very seldom diagnosed before widespread asbestos mining in the early to mid twentieth century and had risen sharply in incidence over the last five decades. Worldwide asbestos consumption peaked in the 1980s, but the author stated that its use appeared to be gaining unprecedented popularity in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America, so that many more cases would be diagnosed in the future. He also noted the long latency between first exposure and disease, difficult diagnosis, underreporting especially in developing countries, distressing symptoms, difficult treatment and frequent therapeutic nihilism among health professionals. He stated that guidelines published in the previous ten years had not used the structured systematic review approach required by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. The new guidelines were based on a systematic review of the literature, with every relevant publication reviewed and scored by at least three independent medical specialists. They gave concise evidence-based recommendations for diagnosis, treatment and care. They were written for an Australian context, but the author stated they could be translated to other health care settings.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This was a two-page editorial, not a research study, and it reported no new data. The author introduced clinical practice guidelines for malignant pleural mesothelioma that were being made available through the Journal of Thoracic Disease. As background, citing other publications, the author wrote that asbestos use appeared to be gaining popularity in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America. The author stated that the various guidelines published in the previous ten years had not used the structured systematic literature review required by Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). According to the author, the new guidelines were based on a systematic review of the literature, and each relevant publication was reviewed and scored by at least three independent medical specialists. The author described the guidelines as a set of concise evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. They were written for an Australian context, and the author said they could also be adapted to health care settings outside Australia. The editorial did not describe the content of the recommendations.

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 introducing clinical practice guidelines; no original research or data
• Who was studied: No study population. The editorial concerns guidelines for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, written for an Australian context.
• Exposure: No exposure was studied. As background, citing other work, the author wrote that asbestos use appeared to be gaining popularity in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America. No fiber types are named.
• Main results:
  • The author's statement, not a research finding: none of the clinical practice guidelines published in the previous ten years had used the structured systematic review approach required by the Australian NHMRC.
  • The author's description of the new guidelines, not a research finding: they were based on a systematic review, and every relevant publication was reviewed and scored by a minimum of three independent medical specialists.
• The authors' conclusion: The author described the guidelines as concise evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. They were written for Australia, and the author said they could also be translated to health care settings outside Australia.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Pleural Mesothelioma, Mesothelioma, Pleura, Latency, Systematic Review.

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