Diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic implications of genetic profiling in pleural mesothelioma

Abstract

Pleural mesothelioma (PM) is an aggressive malignancy of the pleural lining that typically arises secondary to asbestos exposure. With the advent of next-generation sequencing, major progress has been made in the molecular characterization of pleural mesothelioma over the past three decades. However, these advances have been largely unable to identify effective targeted therapies for PM. Additionally, there remains an absence of accepted gold-standard consensus for staging and treatment, which partly explains the overall poor outcomes in patients with PM. In recent years, genetic profiling of PM tumors has proved to be an effective tool in the diagnosis and prognosis of PM. Genomic sequencing has identified several potential targets for the development of novel therapeutics in PM. This review summarizes the progress in diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics derived by genomics and tumor profiling of PM tumors.