Treatment for Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma, a type of cancer and one of the causes for this type of cancer is the long time exposure to asbestos. There are various types of treatments available for this but all of that are not that much effective.

Because every cancer has to be diagnosed at its early stage else it cannot be

controlled. Likewise this Mesothelioma is very difficult to detect in early stages as the symptoms are very general hence all the treatments that are being available for this mainly deals with increasing the lifetime of the patients and their health and not with curing the disease.

There are three kinds of treatment available for this Mesothelioma such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Doctors will decide what kind of treatment suits the patient depending on their age, weight, condition and stage of the disease, and their medical history. Once they understand the nature of patient disease and its level, it is easier for them to proceed with the treatment hence they look for all the details. Let us see all three types of treatment methods in detail.

Surgery:

In surgery there are two types one is aggressive and the other one is normal surgery. Aggressive surgery helps in controlling the cancer for long time and it alleviates mainly the symptoms of the disease from patient. This surgery is possible to do with young and fit patients as the risk involved with this surgery is very high. This aggressive surgery removes the tumors from the lung, the diaphragm, and the pericardium. This removal of tumors makes the patient to feel free from symptoms and pain. This has to be done with utmost care because if any of the tumors burst out while removing it will risk the patient’s life. Also this is a type of surgery opted only at the time when it is conformed that there is no other way of curing other than removing tumors and by doing like this only they could extend the lifetime for several months, as the risk involved is very high. This kind of surgery is also known as extra pleural pneumonectomy.

The normal surgery is done at the early stage if it is detected and once it is cured at the early stage there is no chance of occurring later if treated properly. But this surgery is very rare as the chance of detecting Mesothelioma at its early stage is very difficult.

Chemotherapy:

This is the very normal kind of treatment using drugs. Even though the result is not effective it is being followed by many physicians with different combinations. In some combination it is effective and it is mainly used at its initial stage.

Because curing after deep penetration is not possible not only for Mesothelioma but also for any kind of cancer. Chemotherapy treatment is little bit increasing with new ideas of different research labs and pharmaceutical companies. Hence this kind of treatment is still on the positive side for many patients at their initial stage.

Radiation Therapy:

The tumors in the internal organs are killed by using radiation in this therapy as this is the main symptom and cause which leads to death. If these tumors are killed then there is no fear for long time as it takes long time to develop next tumors. But diagnosing using radiation is a very difficult and riskier job as the heavier dose may result in bursting of tumors and may lead to death. The main reason is nearby the tumors only heart, lungs, and many other internal organs hence it has to be handled with great care. To avoid this kind of risk, it is better to use medium or lower radiation dose but this won’t kill the tumors but reduces its effectiveness to greater extent.

There is also another therapy called Dual Therapy which is just the combination of all the above treatments. That is surgery is used for removing most number of tumors and by using the other techniques that is Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy the effectiveness of other tumors is reduced and this makes the treatment more effective than individual kind of treatment. Other than these treatments there is also an alternative treatment which is in its experimenting stage and that is known as Gene Therapy.

In Gene Therapy, scientists use the genes to stop the cancer. Because long time exposure to asbestos causes damages to the DNA and the genes in your cells this allows the cancer to grow with time. If the reactions of these cells are changed then the spread of cancer could be stopped. Hence if doctors or scientists replace the damaged genes with effective genes which has the ability to stop the cancer then Mesothelioma could be alleviated as a whole.

There is also another kind of treatment called knockout therapy in which doctor’s give oncogenes i.e., modified genes which has the ability to stop the Mesothelioma cancer. All these treatments are at its initial stage of implementing and once it is tested positive then there is no need to worry about any type of cancer including Mesothelioma.