There are different ways of treating this rare cancer and treatment includes all the conventional cancer therapies of radiation and chemotherapy. It has been seen that chemotherapy and radiation has had a higher chance in increasing the lifespan of the patients by a maximum of five years, and in some cases, a little more than that. In this case, surgery has proved to deliver disappointing results in terms of extending the lifespan of mesothelioma patients.

In surgery, usually a pleurectomy is conducted. In this the chest lining is surgically removed. The most conventional and relatively successful methods are that of chemotherapy and radiation. In the latter the entire hemi thorax is treated wit h radiation along with chemotherapy. This treatment is usually followed after a radical surgery, and is therefore, a post-surgical procedure.

The former, which is chemotherapy, is the only method which is known to extend the lifespan of patients, while it is being administered in strictly controlled doses. Studies have revealed that a combination of cisplatin and pemetrexed chemotherapy is a lot more effective than cisplatin therapy alone.

Then there is immunotherapy where patients inoculated with BCG or Bacillus Calmette-Guerin was not successful in enhancing the immunity of the patient, while treating the cancerous cells with in vitro lysis by LAK cells followed by interleukin-2 proved to be effective. However there have been instances of major side effects with different tests in immunotherapy while some have yielded relatively good results. For example, tests with interferon alpha have been relatively successful as the tumours have been reduced to 50% of their original sizes.