Treatments For Pleural Mesothelioma

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy is used to shrink tumors, and often has palliative uses. As tumors grow, they increase the pressure and pain in a person's chest, and may also make breathing increasingly difficult. Radiation uses specifically targeted beams of radioactive light to target and destroys the tumors.

This treatment does have risks of its own. Radiation therapy might increase the chance of developing a secondtype of cancer, so it should not be used on child mesothelioma patients. However, most pleural mesothelioma patients are middle-aged to elderly. Their cancer development risk is much lower because their life expectancy is shorter. Doctors recommend radiation in cases where it is the most logical option to ease discomfort without surgery. In most cases, radiation will be used alongside other treatment methods.

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Multimodal Therapy

Multimodal therapy refers to using several treatments instead of just one. Most doctors will recommend some form of multimodal approach to treatment, as combining treatments have shown to offer great increases in life expectancy.

A doctor may prescribe a chemo treatment as the first course of action regarding tumors. However, after the chemo shrinks the tumors, they may recommend the patient have the tumors surgically excised. Similarly, a doctor may recommend surgical procedures first, with follow-up chemotherapy to destroy any cancer cells left behind.

When surgical procedures were used alone, their average length of survival was twenty-two months. However, when chemo treatment and surgical procedures were combined, that number lengthened to thirty-five months.

Another study shows combining radiation techniques, chemotherapy, and surgical procedures can cause a patient to survive for an average of thirty-three months. This is more than three times the original life expectancy given to many pleural mesothelioma patients.

Continue to take a look into emerging treatments for this condition now.