Closing the stable door before the horse leaves

Our plain-English summary of Closing the stable door before the horse leaves, by V. Acton (The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, 2015).

The study

• Author: V. Acton
• Journal: The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
• Published: 2015;149(5):1467
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item is a short letter to the editor, not a research study. Its author was a radiologist in private practice in Sydney, Australia. The letter responded to an article by Valerie W. Rusch, which the letter described as indicating favorable outcomes when hyperthermic povidone iodine was added to multimodality treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. The author stated that there were no recorded cases of mesothelioma in the medical literature after earlier pleurodesis, citing one published report. Pleurodesis here meant introducing pleural sclerosants, including povidone iodine, to prevent recurrent pneumothorax in young men. The author noted that a very large number of people worldwide had undergone this procedure over the last 70 years. On that basis, the author suggested it seemed reasonable to suspect that the changes these sclerosants produce in the parietal pleura may prevent mesothelioma. The author proposed that, if this is correct, a younger person with asbestos-related pleural plaques might choose simple pleurodesis to remove what the author called a slight but real long-term threat of mesothelioma. The letter presented no new data and did not test this idea.

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: Letter to the editor (opinion and hypothesis), responding to a published article on hyperthermic povidone iodine in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma
• Who was studied: No people or animals were studied. The letter refers in general terms to young men who had pleurodesis for recurrent pneumothorax, and to younger individuals with asbestos-related pleural plaques.
• Exposure: Pleurodesis using pleural sclerosants, including povidone iodine, given to prevent recurrent pneumothorax in young men. Asbestos-related pleural plaques are mentioned, but no asbestos exposure was studied.
• Main results:
  • The author stated, citing another publication rather than new data, that there are no recorded cases of mesothelioma in the medical literature after earlier pleurodesis.
  • The author suggested, as a suspicion rather than a tested finding, that the changes sclerosants produce in the parietal pleura may prevent mesothelioma.
• The authors' conclusion: The author proposed that, if the suspicion is correct, a younger individual with asbestos-related pleural plaques might choose simple pleurodesis to remove the long-term slight but real threat of mesothelioma.

Topics

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

Related studies

• Pleurectomy/decortication, hyperthermic pleural lavage with povidone-iodine, prophylactic radiotherapy, and systemic chemotherapy in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma: a 10-year experience — L. Lang-Lazdunski, A. Bille, et al. (2015)
• Povidone iodine: the new solution for mesothelioma? — V.W. Rusch (2015)
• Pleurectomy/decortication, hyperthermic pleural lavage with povidone-iodine followed by adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma — L. Lang-Lazdunski, A. Bille, et al. (2011)
• Value of laparoscopy before cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy for peritoneal carcinomatosis — L.H. Iversen, P.C. Rasmussen, et al. (2013)
• Hyperthermic intraoperative pleural cisplatin chemotherapy extends interval to recurrence and survival among low-risk patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma undergoing surgical macroscopic complete resection — D.J. Sugarbaker, R.R. Gill, et al. (2013)
• Intrathoracic chemo-thermotherapy with radiofrequency waves after extrapleural pneumonectomy for malignant pleural mesothelioma — T. Tokunaga, M. Higashiyama, et al. (2011)

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