The treatment of advanced pleural malignancies, such as malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), remains generally ineffective despite the use of surgery, external beam radiation therapy, and chemotherapy individually or in combination.1,2 Given the current lack of effective therapies, new treatment approaches for MPM are clearly needed, including the novel approach of intrapleural genetic immunotherapy. MPM is a particularly attractive target for gene transfer studies because of the paucity of effective therapies and the relative accessibility of the tumors in the pleural space for delivery of experimental therapies.
