Mesothelioma Cancer

What Is Mesothelioma ?
Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that develops in the tissues of cells that line the lungs, heart and stomach. This tissues is called mesothelial cells become infected by inhaling particles of dust form asbestos. This cells then dry up the fluids surrounding these major organs of the body and develop tumors.

Mesothelioma cancer is hard to be deal. It will require a lot of physical and emotional endurance. You also need to have strong supporter like family and friends by your side. High medical skill and advice is also needed to deal this cancer. First steps, to dealing with mesothelioma cancer you need to learn anything you can from this disease. This include the risk factors, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of mesothelioma cancer. Is mesothelioma cureable? read more at treatment section.

Causes
The major risk factors for mesothelioma cancer to be happen is by working with asbestos. History reported around 70% ~ 80% cases is because asbestos exposure. Smoking doesn't increase the risk of having mesothelioma cancer but smoking with asbestos exposure significantly increases a person's risk of developing mesothelioma cancer.

Asbestos is used for it’s resistance to fire or heat. So many of people or workers being exposed to asbestos dust. Actually the risks that associated with asbestos were not known but increased people on develop mesothelioma cancer among the asbestos exposures make the unknown become unknown.

There got a risk in developing mesothelioma among the family members and others that living with asbestos workers. Maybe this risk is because of asbestos dust that being brought to home.

Symptoms

Since mesothelioma takes a long time to develop inside a human body it is often difficult to identify the symptoms. In the early stages there may not even be any symptoms at all. When they do appear the most common early symptoms are shortness of breath and chest pains. These symptoms on their own will not usually identify the disease and are often misdiagnosed as asthma or other respiratory problems like pneumonia.

There are several symptoms will occur to mesothelioma cancer patient. The symptoms may not appear until 30 to 50 years exposure to asbestos. The often symptoms of mesothelioma is shortness of breath, cough, and pain in the chest.

If the cancer already spread to other parts of body, symptoms may include pain, trouble in swallowing and swelling of the neck. In severe cases, thrombophelebitis, severe bleeding in many body organs, eyes and skin looks yellow, low blood sugar level may be present.

Diognasis

Diagnosing mesothelioma is not an easy tasks. Mesothelioma symptoms is similar to many of diseases. So, its hard to know that patient got mesothelioma or not. Diagnosis begins with patient's history. This include to the patient asbestos exposure. A physical examination will performed follow by x-ray and lung function test.

The diagnosing will be different for different parts that being attacked by mesothelioma.

If in the chest, they will perform a thoracoscopy. In this procedure, the doctor makes a small cut through the chest wall and put light tube into the chest between two ribs. This allow the doctor to look inside the chest and gain some tissue samples.

If the mesothelioma in abdomen, they will perform laparoscopy. The doctor will makes a opening in the abdomen and inserts a instrument into the abdominal cavity to gain the tissue. This is a challenge to the doctor because mesothelioma symptoms take a long time to shows up.

So, maybe the patient will suspect a several disease before the doctor can comfirm the patient got mesothelioma cancer.

Treatments

The treatment for mesothelioma cancer still in research but there are several treatment to the existing patient nowadays. The treatment is not proved to be successful because there are a chance that the patient can survive. Treatment for mesothelioma depends on the cancer location, the disease stage, patient's age and patient current health.

Treatment options for mesothelioma cancer is surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. .

1. Surgery is a common treatment for mesothelioma. The doctor may remove part of the lining chest or abdomen and some tissue around it.
2. Radiotherapy involves the use of high-energy rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. This therapy only affects the cancer cells in the treated area.
3. Chemotherapy is the usage of anticancer drugs to kill cancer cells throughout the body. An injection is giving to the vein.