Prognostic factors in malignant pleural mesothelioma

Malignant pleural mesothelioma is an extremely aggressive neoplasm with a poor prognosis. Conventional medical, physical and surgical treatments and their combinations are basically ineffective. Just a few subjects experience some benefit. In the present review we evaluated the impact on prognosis of some conventional factor (i.e. age, gender, histology, staging) as well as relatively new clinical factors such as quality of life, positron emission tomography assessment, occult residual disease. Furthermore, many biological and genetic markers have been recently recognized at the bases of the onset and growth of mesothelioma. These novel factors may play an important role in defining the prognosis of the disease and eventually they might have an hypothetical usefulness in addressing therapy.