Is the Deciduoid Variant of Pleural Mesothelioma Significant?

Our plain-English summary of Is the Deciduoid Variant of Pleural Mesothelioma Significant?, by A. Aujayeb, L. Taylor (Journal of Thoracic Oncology, 2020).

The study

• Authors: A. Aujayeb, L. Taylor
• Journal: Journal of Thoracic Oncology
• Published: 2020;15(6):e94
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a letter to the editor, not a research study. The authors, health care practitioners in Northeast England, responded to published proposals for updating how pleural mesothelioma is classified under the microscope. They disagreed with one point in those proposals (Table 3, cytology point L): that the deciduoid variant of pleural mesothelioma has no prognostic significance, meaning it does not help predict a patient's outlook. The authors described one patient they had recently seen with deciduoid pleural mesothelioma. They had reported this case earlier. Although the patient initially had excellent performance status, the patient had a very poor response to chemotherapy and a very limited life span. The authors wrote that their literature review found the deciduoid variant was associated with a very poor prognosis, with an approximate 1-year mortality of 68%. They acknowledged that there are no large-scale survival studies of this rare variant. The authors suggested adding a word of caution to the proposals. The letter does not discuss asbestos or any other exposure. The supplied text also contains a separate reply from the authors of the proposals, which is not summarized here.

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 commenting on published classification proposals. It draws on one case the authors previously reported and on a literature review.
• Who was studied: A single patient with deciduoid pleural mesothelioma, seen by the authors, who work in Northeast England. The letter gives no age, sex or dates.
• Main results:
  • The authors disagreed with the proposals' statement (Table 3, cytology point L) that the deciduoid variant of pleural mesothelioma has no prognostic significance.
  • In the authors' one patient, deciduoid pleural mesothelioma was associated with a very poor response to chemotherapy and a very limited life span, despite initially excellent performance status.
  • The authors' literature review found the deciduoid variant associated with a very poor prognosis, with an approximate 1-year mortality of 68%.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors suggested that a word of caution about the prognosis of the deciduoid variant should be inserted in the proposals.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors stated that there are no large-scale survival studies for deciduoid pleural mesothelioma because it is rare.

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: Deciduoid Variant, Pleural Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Malignant deciduoid mesothelioma: a rare variant of epithelioid mesothelioma — L. Taylor, D. Cooper, et al. (2019)
• Mesotheliomas with deciduoid morphology: a morphologic spectrum and a variant not confined to young females — J.H. Shanks, M. Harris, et al. (2000)
• Malignant Deciduoid Mesothelioma: case presentation of an exceptional variant and review of the literature — M. Khmou, S. Echcharif, et al. (2017)
• A Significant Metabolic and Radiological Response after a Novel Targeted MicroRNA-based Treatment Approach in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma — S.C. Kao, M. Fulham, et al. (2015)
• Significant augmentation of pro-apoptotic gene therapy by pharmacologic bcl-xl down-regulation in mesothelioma — I. Mohiuddin, X. Cao, et al. (2001)
• The Controlling Nutritional Status Score Is a Significant Independent Predictor of Poor Prognosis in Patients With Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma — S. Takamori, G. Toyokawa, et al. (2017)

Browse more research in Journal of Thoracic Oncology, or return to medical research.