Does Mesothelioma Treatment Provides Positive Outcomes?

By Heidi Wingrain

The success or failure of mesothelioma treatments basically depends on the phase of cancer at the time of exposure. Several treatment methods including traditional and modern are followed by doctors. Sometimes a combination of two or three conventional therapies including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are used by physicians. Treatments enhance the lives of more than two-thirds of stage-1 and stage-2 patients by five years or more. Surgery has been doing the same in around 16% of the cases.

In surgery, the removal of cancerous growth takes place through incisions. The extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), removes the lining around the lungs, inside the chest, the hemi-diaphragm and pericardium. The decortication or pleurectomy surgery involves the removal of chest lining. It is the most common surgery done in mesothelioma patients.

In spite of all its side effects, chemotherapy has proved to be the best of all the present mesothelioma treatments imparted. It is a less aggressive treatment than radiation or surgery. The process is usually long drawn out, physically and emotionally difficult for the affected.

The new technique immunotherapy, aimed at improving the immunity of the body has not given a stable result till now. Heated Intraoperative Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy aids in enhancing the penetration of anti-cancer drugs. In this treatment, the drugs are heated to a particular degree of temperature before given to the patients. Numerous researches are going on to provide more useful mesothelioma treatments.

There are certain factors to be taken into account before actually starting the treatment process. They are the age of the patient, the level of the disease and his overall health. Also the patient should be given sufficient opportunities to find the most appropriate treatment, its advantages and disadvantages, the cost involved, risk factors and the chances of cure. These days palliative treatment, which treats the symptoms not the causes, is also becoming popular. This method is opted where aggressive mesothelioma treatments are impossible. - 30285

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