Detecting  Mesothelioma Cancer

Imaging tests

Imaging tests use x-rays, radioactive particles, or magnetic fields to create pictures of the organs inside your body. Imaging tests may be done for a number of reasons to help find a suspicious area that might be cancerous or to learn how far cancer may have spread. It helps to determine if the treatment has been effective.

Chest x-ray

Chest X-ray is often the first test done if someone has symptoms such as a constant cough or shortness of breath. It may show an abnormal thickening of the pleura, calcium deposits on the pleura, fluids between the lungs and the chest wall, or changes in the lungs themselves as a result of asbestos exposure.

Computed tomography (CT) scan

CT scans are often used to help assess the likelihood that Mesothelioma is present. It helps to determine the exact location of the cancer. They can also help to check the cancer stage and determine how far the disease is spread. It can also help to determine performing surgery might be a treatment option.

Positron emission tomography (PET) scan

For a PET scan, person receives an injection of glucose (a form of sugar) that contains a radioactive atom. The amount of radioactivity used is very low. Cancer cells in the body grow quickly so they absorb large amounts of the radioactive sugar. A special camera can then be used to create a picture of areas of radioactivity in the body. The picture is not detailed like a CT or MRI scans.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans

Like CT scans, MRI scans provides detail images of soft tissues in the body. But MRI scans use radio waves and strong magnets instead of x-rays. The energy from the radio waves is absorbed and then released in a pattern formed by the type of body tissue and certain diseases. A computer translates the pattern into detailed images of parts of the body. A contrast material called gadolinium is often injected into a vein before the scan to better see details.

Blood tests

Blood levels of certain substances are often elevated in people with Mesothelioma.

Tests of fluid and tissue samples

A person’s symptoms, the results of tests, imaging tests, or blood tests may strongly suggest that Mesothelioma is present. The actual diagnosis is made by removing cells from an abnormal area and looking at them under a microscope.

Surgical Biopsy

In some cases, more invasive procedures may be needed to get a large enough tissue sample to make a diagnosis. Surgery, either a thoracotomy (which opens the chest cavity) or a laparotomy (which opens the abdominal cavity) allows the surgeon to removes a larger sample of tumor or sometimes the entire tumor.

Bronchoscope Biopsy

For pleural Mesothelioma, the doctor may also do a bronchoscopy. The doctor passes a long, thin, flexible, fiber-optic tube called a bronchoscope down the throat to look at the lining of the lungs. You will be sedated for this. If a tumor is found, the doctor can take a small sample of the tumor through the tube.

Above mentioned are the different types of tests that can be done to help diagnose mesothelioma cancer.

Treatment For Mesothelioma Cancer

There are three traditional types of treatment for Mesothelioma: – Surgery, Radiation Therapy, and Chemotherapy. Doctors can use combinations of these treatments.

The multi-treatment approach appears to provide positive results for treating the initial stages of this diseases. These treatments successfully increase the patient’s life span by five years or more which is commonly known as remission. However, success percentage may increase or decrease depending on the stage of the malignant development.

Surgery

Surgery is a common treatment for Mesothelioma although by itself it cannot do much. However radiation and chemotherapy usually prescribes post surgery. A pleurectomy/ decortications are the most common surgery in which the Doctor may remove parts of the lining of the chest or abdomen and some of the tissue around it.

Radiation

Radiation or radiotherapy, involves use of high-energy rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Radiation therapy affects the cancer cells only in the treated area. The radiation may come from a machine (external radiation) or from putting materials that produce radiation through thin plastic tubes into the area where the cancer cells are found (internal radiation therapy). The necessary radiation dose to treat mesothelioma that has not been surgically removed would be very toxic.

For patients with localized disease and who can tolerate a radical surgery radiation is often given after the surgery as a consolidate treatment. This approach of using surgery followed by radiation with chemotherapy has been pioneered by the Thoracic Oncology Team at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Delivering radiation and chemotherapy after a radical surgery has led to extended life expectancy in some cases with some patients surviving more than 5 years.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is usage of anticancer drugs to kill cancer cells throughout the body. Drugs are used to treat Mesothelioma and patience is given injection into vein (known as intravenous, or IV). Doctors are also studying the effectiveness of intra-cavitary chemotherapy, direct injection into the chest or abdomen

These are the main treatment methods. However, physicians are currently studying other treatment modalities such as immunotherapy and intra-operative photodynamic therapy.

Immunotherapy

Treatment regimens involves immunotherapy have yielded variable results. For example: intra pleural inoculation of éBacillus Calmette-Gurin (BCG) in an attempt to boost the immune response has not been very positive. Nonetheless other trials involving interferon alpha have proved more encouraging with 20% of patients experiencing greater than 50% reduction in tumor mass combined with minimal side effects.

Heated Intra-operative Intra-peritoneal Chemotherapy

A procedure known as heated Intra-operative intra chemotherapy was developed by Paul Sugar Baker at the Washington Cancer Institute. The surgeon removes tumor as much as possible followed by the direct administration of a chemotherapy agent heated between 40 to 48°C in the abdomen. The fluid is per fused for 60 to 120 minutes and then drained.

This technique permits the administration of high concentrations of selected drugs into the abdominal and pelvic surfaces. Heating the chemotherapy treatment increases the penetration of the drugs into tissues. Also, heating itself damages the malignant cells more than the normal cells.

Various other programs are also exhibiting favorable results. Despite such successes and so much research the irony is that no cure for Mesothelioma currently exists.

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