Mesothelioma Treatment Center offers new at-home device

Doctors at the Mesothelioma Treatment Center at Baylor College of Medicine and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center are now offering mesothelioma patients a new FDA-approved device as part of their treatment plan. The device called NovoTTF-100L is used together with chemotherapy for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma that cannot be treated with surgery.

Patients wear the device at home for up to 18 hours a day. Pads are placed on the chest to deliver alternating electrical fields that disrupt cancer cell division. Rechargable batteries—carried in a backpack—power the device throughout the day. It is approved for use in conjunction with standard chemotherapy such as cisplatin and pemetrexed. The device is only approved for use in certain cases because it has not yet been tested against a control group of standard therapy alone in clinical trials.

“We are always looking for treatments to improve the survival, quality of life, and options for patients with mesothelioma,” said Dr. R. Taylor Ripley, associate professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, director of the Mesothelioma Treatment Center and member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center. “NovoTTF-100L provides another therapeutic options that may be valuable, therefore, we have added it to our treatment options at Baylor College of Medicine.”