Treating Mesothelioma can be tricky. The success of your treatment program is dependent upon several factors. Early detection is critical to successful treatment.
The factors that determine the success of your treatment are:
- The type of mesothelioma
- Location of the tumor
- The staging of the cancer—stage I, II, III, etc.
- Age of patient
- Overall health of patient
- The degree the cancer has spread
But every patient is different. There is no single recommended course of treatment for malignant mesothelioma. You can expect X-rays, biopsies, CT scans, and MRIs to help your doctors decide what course of action will work best in your case. When treating mesothelioma, doctors give almost all of their patients options that alleviate pain, extend their lives, and raise their quality of life.
One of the common ways of treating mesothelioma is to employ surgery, or the removal of cancerous tissues. Sometimes the surgery is performed as a curative measure that is used to cure the disease. Other times, it is a palliative measure, which means it is to keep the patient more comfortable and increase quality of life. The reason palliative surgeries are employed is because mesothelioma is most frequently diagnosed in later stages. As a result, a surgery to cure the condition is often not an option for the doctors treating mesothelioma. In fact, if the tumor has metastasized—which means it has spread or grown—outside of the pleural cavity, then doctors can no longer use surgery except as a palliative treatment.
Pleurodesis is a palliative surgery where doctors inject talc into your lungs. This will keep fluid from coming back into your lungs. Another palliative surgery is called thoracentesis. This takes the fluid out of your lungs by extracting it with a thin needle. Depending on the severity of your mesothelioma, pleurectomy is an option. In this surgery, doctors take out the pleura, which is the lining of your lung. This is done in an effort to contain fluid build-up. Controlling the build-up of fluid will alleviate some of your pain and make breathing easier.
Another treatment option is radiation, which is often used when your health is too delicate for chemotherapy or surgery. Radiation does offer the fewest side effects of all of the treatments and patients often tolerate it better than chemotherapy.
But often radiation is used alongside another treatment. Sometimes patients have radiation with chemotherapy. The most common type of radiation is external beam radiation. This method of treating mesothelioma is done with a machine that is pointed at the parts of the body impacted by the cancer. The patient usually has a treatment each day five days a week for five weeks. This is a palliative method. It is used to help patients breathe better, alleviate pain or bleeding. Also, when patients are having difficulty swallowing, this is a treatment used. Sometimes this is used in conjunction with surgery.
Chemotherapy is another treatment used for treating mesothelioma. But it is not a curative measure. However, it can effectively alleviate some of the symptoms of the disease. Typically, chemotherapy will be administered either by injecting drugs into the patient or giving the patient a pill. Injected medicines are usually two drugs used in combination.
Other drugs are used with chemotherapy to fight the side effects of the treatment, which can be unpleasant. Nausea and vomiting are the two most common side effects, so medications to relieve those symptoms are common. Vitamins to replace those lost during the treatment is also a common course of action. Many patients opt out of chemotherapy after deciding the side effects outweigh the benefits.
Treating mesothelioma is an individualized process that is dependent upon the nature of the distinct factors of each person’s condition at the time treatment is being decided. There are options to be considered.
