Mesothelioma: Is chemotherapy alone a thing of the past?

Treatment of mesothelioma is evolving, with recent randomised trial data supporting the addition of bevacizumab to pemetrexed and cisplatin therapy. Single-agent immune checkpoint inhibitors have failed to demonstrate survival benefits in randomised trials; however, using a combination of programmed death receptor/ligand 1 (PD-(L)1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) antagonists may be more effective. Use of immunotherapy agents in the front-line setting may also yield better results. Other immunotherapeutic approaches, such as oncolytic viruses and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells, are progressing closer to evaluation in full-scale clinical trials, as are targeted agents, particularly those focussed on mesothelin. Arginine deprivation may be effective in patients with poor prognosis, non-epithelioid tumours. It is likely that the next decade will yield substantial progress, and the future of mesothelioma treatment looks more hopeful than it has for decades.