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Mesothelioma Treatments
Treatment of mesothelioma cancer depends how
much the cancer has spread (aka metasized). Depending on the
diagnosis, you
can find out what stage of mesothelioma cancer has developed. What kind of
treatment you will receive also depends on your age, health as well as the
location of the mesothelima cancer. Normal treatments include surgery,
chemotherapy and radiation therapy and sometimes all these treatments are
combined.
Surgery: This may entail moving part or all of a lung and some of the
surrounding tissue in order to remove the tumor and cancerous cells. It may
also be necessary to drain the lungs of fluid, simply to make the patient
more comfortable. The extent of surgery will depend largely upon the extent
to which the cancer has spread.
Chemotherapy: For this procedure, drugs are used to fight the cancerous
cells and kill them as well as shrink the tumor. These drugs can be
swallowed by mouth if they are in tablet form, or the doctor may administer
them needle directly into a vein or muscle. The drugs are then able to
travel through the body via the blood stream and kill off any cancer cells
that they come across.
Radiation Therapy: This is where high energy x-rays are used either outside
the body (external radiation) or directed to the source internally (internal
radiation) to shrink the tumor and kills off cancer cells. Internal
radiation is preformed through the use of plastic tubing, where the doctor
can also administer drugs.
Treating pleural mesothelioma is dependant on many things, and it is the
doctor that will normally suggest the recommended course of treatment based
upon his knowledge and the findings from his diagnostic tests. Factors such
as the patient�s age, medical history, general well being, and even weight,
are taken into account. Other factors that have to be considered include:
how far the cancer has spread; and where the cancer is.
The treatments for the different types of mesothelioma are more or less the
same in most cases, but obviously they are targeted towards different areas
of the body depending upon which area has been affected by the cancer.
Unfortunately, patients typically are not diagnosed with
mesothelioma until
the cancer has spread to distant sites in the body. Patients with this
advanced form of mesothelioma often are not eligible for surgery. Advanced
mesothelioma is often treated with chemotherapy in order to improve quality
of life or duration of survival for these patients.
Alimta® (pemetrexed) in combination with cisplatin (Platinol®) was recently
approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the
treatment of inoperable malignant mesothelioma. Alimta®/cisplatin is the
first and only drug regimen proven to improve the duration of survival for
patients with advanced malignant mesothelioma.
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