Pleural Mesothelioma: From Diagnosis to Treatment
A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Cancer Therapy".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 29
Special Issue Editors
Interests: pleural mesothelioma; tumor treating fields; immunotherapy; radiotherapy; multimodality treatment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. Department of Oncology, IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, Via Manzoni 56, Rozzano, 20089 Milan, Italy
Interests: pleural mesothelioma; immunotherapy; multimodality treatment; phase I trials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Pleural mesothelioma (PM) is an incurable cancer related to asbestos exposure. Despite the existence of established international guidelines, many areas of uncertainty and unmet needs remain in diagnostic and therapeutic management.
One major issue in developing effective treatments for PM is its inherent molecular and histological heterogeneity. There are difficulties associated with histological classification, and the epithelioid subtype is particularly heterogeneous. Moreover, the histopathological classification only accounts for a fraction of inter-patient molecular heterogeneity.
Due to the pattern of local spread, few patients are candidates for multimodality treatment including surgery, and thus most receive only systemic therapy. High-level evidence on the role of loco-regional therapies remains lacking. Overall, drug therapy options are still limited. Immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors is the treatment backbone for unresectable PM, although only a subset of patients achieve prolonged benefit; reliable biomarkers for patient selection and stratification are not yet available. Strategies to overcome treatment resistance in pleural mesothelioma patients are based on combination immunotherapy regimens, including alternative checkpoint inhibitors beyond those acting on the PD- 1/PD-L1 and CTLA- 4 axes, angiogenesis inhibitors, and chemotherapy. Unlike many cancers driven by genetic alterations that activate growth-regulating kinases, PM is mainly characterized by loss of tumor suppressor genes, and approaches that target these mechanisms remain elusive, even though initial evidence of activity is emerging.
This Special Issue will highlight the current state of the art in PM, focusing on the most critical areas in diagnosis and treatment, and on future prospects for improving patient outcome.
Dr. Giovanni Luca Ceresoli
Dr. Paolo Andrea Zucali
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- pleural mesothelioma
- histological classification
- molecular characteristics
- immunotherapy
- chemotherapy
- radiotherapy
- surgery
- targeted therapy
- emerging therapies
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