1. Know Your Options
If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, your doctor may treat you based upon where it is located, what stage it is in and your age and overall health status. Your options, based on adoctor's recommendations, may include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy or a combination of one or more of these treatment options. In any case, it is essential to seek an appointment with your doctor the moment you start noticing symptoms of malignant mesothelioma. Chances of cure are higher the earlier you catch the disease.
2. Surgical Option
It is common for a doctor removing a part of the lining of the chest or abdomen if it is affected with mesothelioma. If your lung linings or pleura are affected with mesothelioma, a surgeon may offer you the option of removing the affected lung in an operation called pneumonectomy. At times, a portion of the diaphragm may be removed as well. The diaphragm is the muscle below the lungs that helps with breathing. Sometimes during the surgery, chemicals or drugs may be used to create a scar in the space between the layers of the pleura. Once the fluid is drained out, the medication is put in place. Fluid may be drained out from the chest or abdomen and the scar stops further build-up of fluid. When found early, surgery may cure mesothelioma.
3. Getting Exposed
Even after you are done with surgery, it may be essential to stop it from coming back by further treatment using radiation. Your radiologist might expose your cancer to high-energy x-rays to shrink the tumor. Again, depending on what you need, the surgeon might expose you to radiation from outside or implant radiation-generating materials within your body, internally. Having radiation before the surgery may help increase your chance for a cure.
4. Chemo for Mesothelioma
If your doctor decides that chemotherapy is the best option, most often you can expect an injection into a vein. But also it may be directly injected into the chest or abdomen. Chemotherapy is offered along with other options both in localized as well as advanced malignant mesothelioma. Experts say that combining certain chemotherapy medications can lead to improved symptoms and survival prospects and drugs such as oxaliplatin and irinotecan can help. In fact, your hopes of being alive are high if you can have chemotherapy before surgery. In advanced cases that do not respond to surgery, chemotherapy and radiation may still reduce symptoms.
5. More Things
Participation in clinical trials can offer new treatment options. Clinical trials have confirmed that combining antifolates with platinum-based therapy improves survival. Pain relief and oxygen treatment have also been shown to relieve symptoms. Researchers in clinical practice oncology say that "new approaches for treating this disease are arising from a better understanding of the underlying biology and are beginning to be translated into the clinical setting."
