Pleuropneumonectomy: an effective treatment modality for malignant pleural mesothelioma?

In Japan, asbestos was finally treated as a social issue in 2006, and a pleuropneumonectomy has been recently recognized as one of the effective treatments for malignant pleural mesothelioma. A pleuropneumonectomy for this disease was first performed by Wörn in 1974, followed by other reports made by Butchart et al., Rusch et al., and Sugarbaker et al. These reports include many problems, such as1 surgical indications based on the clinical staging system, surgical techniques, and preand postoperative adjuvant therapy. In this report, I review the results of a conventional pleuropneumonectomy and clarify the role of this aggressive approach in the multidisciplinary treatment of this disease.