Povidone iodine: the new solution for mesothelioma?

Our plain-English summary of Povidone iodine: the new solution for mesothelioma?, by V.W. Rusch (The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, 2015).

The study

• Author: V.W. Rusch
• Journal: The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
• Published: 2015;149(2):567-8
• Type of article: Editorial, Comment
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is an editorial commentary, not an original study. The author commented on a separate study by Lang-Lazdunski and colleagues published in the same journal issue. According to the editorial, that study analyzed 102 consecutive patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. The patients were treated with extended pleurectomy and decortication, heated povidone iodine washing of the pleura during surgery, and chemotherapy and radiotherapy afterward. That study reported a median overall survival of 32 months and a 5-year survival of 23.1%. The author noted that the study was retrospective and evaluated several treatments at once, which made it hard to tell which ones might be effective. Almost 90% of first recurrences were in the pleura or lung on the same side. For that reason, the author judged it unlikely that the povidone iodine lavage was particularly effective, and described the preliminary data supporting it as scant. The author called for prospective multicenter trials designed around clear, simple questions, with better patient selection. The editorial did 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 (no new data)
• Who was studied: No patients were studied in this article. It discusses a separate study by Lang-Lazdunski and colleagues of 102 consecutive patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.
• Main results:
  • Not this article's own finding: the editorial reports that the related study by Lang-Lazdunski and colleagues found an overall median survival of 32 months and a 5-year survival of 23.1% in its patients.
  • The author's view: the related study was retrospective, like many published studies.
  • The author's view: since almost 90% of first recurrences in the related study were in the same-side pleura or lung, the povidone iodine lavage seemed unlikely to have been particularly effective, though it was well tolerated.
• The authors' conclusion: The author argued that prospective trials in malignant pleural mesothelioma should be designed around clear, simple questions with clean end points, so that it can be understood which parts of multimodality therapy are worth using.

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: 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)
• 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)
• Closing the stable door before the horse leaves — V. Acton (2015)
• Antineoplastic activity of povidone-iodine on different mesothelioma cell lines: results of in vitro study — A. Fiorelli, F. Pentimalli, et al. (2014)
• 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)

Browse more research in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, or return to medical research.