Mesothelioma Treatment Options - Varied But Limited In Scope
Urgent medical attention is required for mesothelioma patients. Only specialized cancer centers, which have the relevant experience and skill help the victims efficiently. Mesothelioma treatment options are wide and varied. It depends on the discretion of the doctors, what treatment the patient should undergo. The decision is taken after taking into account the age and health of the patient, the stage of cancer and the area affected by it. In most cases, mesothelioma survival becomes very difficult as the diagnosis of the cancer takes place only at the advanced stage.
Whatever may be the case, doctors toil ceaselessly to save the patients by adopting various treatment methods. Surgery is the most popular treatment option available, which aims at removing the cancer. Medical practitioners follow eight different surgery options. They include palliative surgery which removes the pain; reconstructive surgery which regains the appearance and function of the infected organ; debulking surgery which reduces cancerous growth; curative surgery which eradicates small tumors; supportive surgery which aids other mesothelioma treatment options like immunotherapy; diagnostic surgery which determines the type of cancer; preventive surgery which removes the malicious tissues and staging surgery which identifies the stage of the cancer.
A combination of drugs is used in chemotherapy to destroy the malicious cells and it is the most effective cancer treatment these days. Sometimes drugs are administered intravenously and passed through the blood stream. At times they are injected directly at the most infected areas. Physicians generally use four types of chemotherapy. The symptoms of Mesothelioma are treated using palliative chemotherapy; prevention of cancer reappearance is done by adjuvant chemotherapy and shrinking of cancer before surgery is achieved by neoadjuvant or preoperative chemotherapy. Combined modality chemotherapy is used along with surgery, radiotherapy or other treatment options.
Radiation therapy involves using x-rays, gamma rays, particle rays or proton beams to kill the malignant cells. Most often, radiotherapy is used in combination with surgery and chemotherapy. Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, which is a recent breakthrough achievement, tries to administer only the appropriate doses of radiation precisely on the cancerous mass.
Researches are going on to find better mesothelioma treatment options. They include photodynamic therapy, biological therapy, gene therapy, multimodality therapy, immunotherapy etc. These treatment methods have not given a stable result but are increasingly used these days with fluctuating success rates. Ultimately the success of treatment lies in the response of the body to the treatment procedure and its capacity to deal with the vigorous treatment techniques.
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