Mesothelioma Prognosis ?

Prognosis: a prediction of the course of a disease

Mesothelioma is a form of cancer that is almost always caused by exposure to asbestos. In this disease, malignant cells develop in the mesothelium, a protective lining that covers most of the body’s internal organs.

The Mesothelioma prognosis is poor despite treatment with chemotherapy, radiation therapy and/or sometimes surgery. Research studies into developing screening tests for the early detection of mesothelioma are ongoing, but lack of early detection is normally the cause for a poor Mesothelioma prognosis.

Mesothelioma is most common in the pleura (the outer lining of the lungs and internal chest wall), but it may also occur in the heart, and the pericardium (a sac that surrounds the heart) or tunica vaginalis, and the peritoneum (the lining of the abdominal cavity).

Most people who have a mesothelioma prognosis have been exposed to asbestos dust and fiber or have worked on jobs where they inhaled asbestos particles, or in other ways. Even just washing the clothes of a family member who worked with asbestos can also put that person at risk for developing mesothelioma.  Although there is no association between mesothelioma and smoking as a cause, but smoking does greatly increase the risk of mesothelioma and other asbestos induced cancers.

Approximately 2,100 to 3,100 cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed each year in the United States.

Mesothelioma is usually not diagnosed until the disease is in its later stages of development. The primary reason is because of the amount of time it takes for mesothelioma patients to display the symptoms associated with the disease. In many cases, mesothelioma symptoms do not appear until several decades after the initial asbestos exposure occurred. Additionally, the symptoms of mesothelioma are very general, and often resemble less serious conditions which can make the cancer difficult to diagnose. As a result, the prognosis for a large majority of the patients isn’t good, but many doctors can recommend treatment options such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation to help combat the disease.

Cancer is usually addressed in terms of stages , stages range from stage one to stage four, with the cancers’ devastation increasing with each stage. A mesothelioma patients stage’ greatly effects their prognosis. The bad news is that once mesothelioma cancer has reached stage three or stage four, treatment options are more limited and less effective as well. When the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, a patient has stage four mesothelioma, and tumors have most likely penetrated organs and tissues deeply. At this stage the patient is in very poor health and that often rules out the possibilities of surgery.

As well as the stage the cancer is at when diagnosed, and the age of the patient, other factors that affect the prognosis include: The type of mesothelioma – pleural , peritoneal , pericardial or testicula, the size of the tumor(s), the location of the tumor and whether it can be surgically removed,  the extent of other symptoms- including fluid in the lungs or abdomen, and wether or not the patient is a smoker.

Malignant mesothelioma is usually diagnosed in people over 55 years old, although there definitely are exceptions. Because of this, some patients who are diagnosed already have multiple medical problems caused by aging, making treatment even more difficult and increasing the mortality rate among mesothelioma patients.