Radiofrequency Ablation for Recurrent Pleural Mesothelioma
<b>Background/Objectives</b>: Pleural mesothelioma (PM) frequently recurs despite multimodal therapy. Here, we aimed to retrospectively evaluate the safety and potential clinical benefit of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for recurrent PM. <b>Methods</b>: Fourteen consecutive patients underwent CT-guided RFA between July 2019 and June 2025. The cohort comprised 13 men and 1 woman, with a median age of 69 (range, 54-77) years. All patients had previously received systemic therapy, and 12 had undergone surgery. Seven patients (50%) presented with multiple lesions, and 25 tumors (median diameter 1.8 cm; range, 0.5-7.0 cm) were treated in 23 sessions. Outcomes assessed were local tumor control, complications, and survival. Local progression and overall survival were estimated using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Adverse events were classified according to the Society of Interventional Radiology guidelines. <b>Results</b>: Technical success was achieved in all sessions. Two tumors showed local recurrence, corresponding to 1- and 2-year local progression rates of 10.6%. Seven patients showed distant metastases, most of whom subsequently received systemic therapy. Three patients died, two from disease progression and one from treatment-related gastrointestinal perforation during therapy for an unrelated cancer. The overall survival rates were 100%, 100%, and 60% at 1, 3, and 5 years, respectively. Major and minor complications occurred in one case each (4.3%): a refractory skin ulcer and retroperitoneal hematoma, respectively. <b>Conclusions</b>: RFA was technically feasible and generally well tolerated and helped achieve encouraging local control and survival in patients with recurrent PM, warranting further evaluation of RFA as a complementary approach in multimodal treatment strategies.
Authors
- Koichiro Yamakado (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9354-1524)
- Takashi Shinkai
- Atsushi Ogasawara
- Kosuke Matsuda (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7513-038X)
- Reona Wada
- Daichi Fujimoto
- T. Kijima
- Kozo Kuribayashi
- Haruyuki Takaki
- Hiroshi Kodama
- Soichiro Funaki
- Masaki Hashimoto
- Toshiyuki Minami
Institutions
- Hyogo Medical University (JP)
- Hyogo University (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Cancers
- Published
- 2026-01-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers18030381
- Primary Topic
- Occupational and environmental lung diseases
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00