New Mesothelioma Test – Showing Effectiveness for Pleural Mesothelioma Patients

Mesothelioma is an asbestos related cancer caused by exposure to asbestos over a long period of time. Symptoms for mesothelioma may not become apparent for decades after the initial exposure to asbestos. Thus it is usually not detected until the late stages after serious side effects begin to present themselves.

What Are Some Of The Diagnosis Of Pleural Mesothelioma?

Mesothelioma in general is extremely difficult to diagnose since symptoms do not appear for a long time after initial asbestos exposure occurs. And in most cases pleural mesothelioma is often mistaken for influenza or pneumonia or other more common disease making it extremely difficult to diagnose and treat.

What Are The Symptoms Of Pleural Mesothelioma?

The symptoms of pleural mesothelioma are very non-specific which makes it very difficult to diagnose at an early stage and treat appropriately. Other symptoms may not appear for decades after exposure to asbestos. Some of the symptoms include:

• Abdominal swelling
• Anemia
• Acute pain in the abdominal region and chest area
• Coughing up blood
• Difficulty swallowing
• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Persistent dry cough
• Weight loss

What Is This New Test?

A new gene ratio test to help predict which pleural mesothelioma patients will benefit from multiple modes of therapy and surgical procedure was developed by researchers at the Birgham and Womens Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. This test has shown to be effective in predicting postsurgical outcome in pleural mesothelioma patient – this is indeed a very important breakthrough in the diagnosis and treatment of mesothelioma.

How Is This Test Used?

The gene ratio test is used to analyze relative expression levels of four genes involved in malignant mesothelioma. The researchers believed that there was a need to develop a molecular test that could predict surgical outcome due to the lack of current means of assessing prognosis in determining which mesothelioma patient will benefit from surgery of trimodality therapy.

How Effective Is This Test?

According to the researchers trimodality treatment that includes chemotherapy and radiation with surgical resection leads to longer life expectancy than nonsurgical therapy in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Although this treatment is effective in longer survival rate it is only beneficial to about 50 percent of malignant pleural mesothelioma patients which means the other 50 percent of patients may not benefit from this test. Overall this test is an effective new development in determining which patient will see an improved mesothelioma prognosis.

What Is The Survival Rate Of This Test?

The survival rate for patients that received trimodality therapy is currently around one to two years. However approximately 20 percent of patients survive for three to fifteen years. This significant increase in survival is definitely good news for patients who may be more genetically apt to benefits from this aggressive new treatment approach.

Due to the positive outcome of this test, researchers are pushing for this test to become a standard practice in diagnosing and planning treatment for pleural mesothelioma patients.

How Reliable Is This Test?

According to researchers their test indicates that it can be performed on specimens obtained in a minimally invasive biopsy performed before major surgical intervention. The test also indicates that it can be used as a reliable source to help inform the clinical decision of whether to perform major surgery or trimodal therapies in addition to accurately predicting postsurgical outcome.

The new developments of drugs and treatment for pleural mesothelioma such as this give hope to those suffering from mesothelioma and their loved ones. It is with great hope that these new tests will one day be 100 percent effective in treating this disease at all stages.

Learning About Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

The prognosis in malignant Pleural Mesothelioma is tough to evaluate consistently as there is quite a bit of variation in the time before diagnosis and the rate of malignant Pleural Mesothelioma progression. A number of surgical routines may be implemented in selected patients, offering long-term survival without a cure. In most Pleural Mesothelioma patients, significant factors for prognosis are age, stage, histology and performance status.

For individuals treated with aggressive surgical routines, factors linked with improved long-term survival are negative surgical margins, negative lymph nodes and epithelial histology. A record of asbestos exposure is reported in about 75% of all Mesothelioma cases.

Cellular Classification

Histologically, Mesothelioma tumors are comprised of epithelial and fibrous elements. According to a recent study, the epithelial form causes plenty of confusion with metastatic carcinomas. A needle biopsy of the pleura is not going to be effective in diagnosis. It is tough distinguishing between Mesothelioma and carcinoma on small tissue specimens. However, a thoracoscopy can be quite useful in getting the correct tissue specimens for diagnostic purposes. Gross tumor examination at the time of surgery can also be useful and the use of electron microscopy is recommended.

Stage Information

Individuals with stage I of the disease have a much better prognosis in comparison to those with stages II or III. Because malignant Pleural Mesothelioma is quite rare, there is not much information available on survival. The staging system is set on the basis of thoracic surgery and the TNM staging system.

• Stage I: Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma confined within the parietal pleura capsule
• Stage II: Everything that is there in the stage I alongside positive intrathoracic lymph nodes
• Stage III: Local extension of malignant Pleural Mesothelioma into the chest wall and heart
• Stage IV: Distant metastatic disease

Treatment Options

It is advisable that you go for a standard treatment rather than aggressive ones. There are a number of side effects associated with aggressive treatment routine. An extra-pleural pneumonectomy in some of the patients may prove effective in the long run. According to recent research, decortication and pleurectomy can give you relief from symptomatic effusions and pain occurring because of tumor burden. The use of radiation therapy and chemotherapy after surgery also gives temporary relief.

Localized Malignant Mesothelioma

Localized Malignant Mesothelioma

• Solitary Mesotheliomas: Surgical resection en bloc comprises of contiguous structures which play a prominent part in getting rid of symptoms. Your health care provider will employ sessile polypoid lesions
• Intracavitary Mesothelioma: Intracavitary Mesothelioma is treated through radiation therapy. In some cases, you will also find extrapleural pneumonectomy.

Advanced Malignant Mesothelioma Treatment Options

• Symptomatic treatment including thoracoscopic pleurodesis, drainage of effusions and chest tube pleurodesis
• Palliative surgical resection is also being performed on some individuals
• Palliative radiation therapy
• Single-agent chemotherapy
• Intracavitary therapy is performed on selected patients. It includes intrapleural and intraperitoneal administration of chemotherapeutic agents. Some of the chemotherapeutic agents that are used in the therapy are cytarabine, cisplatin and mitomycin. These agents play a significant part in minimizing the tumor size and controlling pain.

Recurrent Malignant Mesothelioma

Recurrent malignant Mesothelioma treatment normally uses routines and agents that are not used initially. There is no standard treatment available at present that can control the symptoms of malignant Pleural Mesothelioma.