Mesothelioma Prognosis And Care

Around 2,000 new mesothelioma cases are diagnosed in the US on a yearly basis. Once the patient of mesothelioma is diagnosed, a health care provider will discuss prognosis and will give a result of the impact of cancer on your body. To get rid of poor prognosis, early detection is an absolute must. Recent study has come to the conclusion that mesothelioma symptoms may not make its presence felt until 15 to 30 years after asbestos exposure.

Diagnosis of mesothelioma normally takes place when it has reached the advanced stages of development. The main reason behind this is that patients take plenty of time in displaying symptoms that are associated with mesothelioma. Apart from that, mesothelioma symptoms are pretty general and quite a number of times resemble less complicated conditions, which makes the process of diagnosing cancer lot tougher.

Because of this, there is hardly a surprise that the prognosis for the majority of patients is not good, but lots of health care providers can advice treatment routines like radiation, chemotherapy and surgery to assist in dealing with the disease.

Stages of Mesothelioma and other factors

Health care providers normally address the cancer with regard to stages. There are four different kinds of stages. The significant factor here is that once mesothelioma cancer has reached the advanced stage, treatment routines are not going to be that effective. If you are diagnosed with stage three or four mesothelioma, surgery is not going to be useful.

Apart from cancer stage and patient age, there are other factors as well that affect prognosis. It includes mesothelioma type, tumor size, tumor location and whether it can be removed through surgery and effects of other symptoms. Malignant mesothelioma is normally diagnosed in people that has attain the age of more than 50. Few individuals already have number of medical issues because of old age, making treatment quite tough.

Complications Associated with Mesothelioma

Some of the complications associated with mesothelioma are mentioned below.

* Digital clubbing
* Pain in chest region
* Pleural effusion
* Ascites
* Pleural thickening
* Respiratory failure

Kinds of Mesothelioma

Find below information of various kinds of mesothelioma.

* Benign Mesothelioma - It is non-cancerous kinds of mesothelioma. Benign mesothelioma is rare form of cancer and is not fatal if treated on time. It can occur in the body either in form of cysts, tumors or plaques.

* Pleural Mesothelioma - It affects the lung membranes. Pleural mesothelioma is quite identical to lung cancer.

* Perineal Mesothelioma - It affects the heart lining.

* Malignant Mesothelioma - It affects the membranes of certain big cavities.

* Peritoneal Mesothelioma - It affects the abdominal membrane. Peritoneal mesothelioma is the second most occurring form of mesothelioma.

* Pericardial Mesothelioma - The rarest type of mesothelioma cancer which comprises of only 5% of all the mesothelioma cases is pericardial mesothelioma. It has been observed that middle aged people are most likely to develop this type of mesothelioma and men are more vulnerable to this cancer due to their exposure to asbestos.

By: Chris M. Alexander
articledashboard