Archive for the tag 'extrapleural pneumonectomy'

Mesothelioma Treatments

Mesothelioma treatments have thus far been unable to limit the spread of the deadly cancer. Treatments for mesothelioma are divided into two categories; traditional mesothelioma treatments and new mesothelioma treatments.
Traditional mesothelioma treatments are the same as those used to treat most other cancers, and include:
Surgery
Chemotherapy
Radiation therapy (radiotherapy)

Traditional mesothelioma treatments are often used in conjunction with one another in effort to provide the most thorough and effective method of treatment. For example, trimodality therapy combines all three traditional methods of treatment, where chemotherapy is administered first with the aim of slowing the growth of malignant mesothelioma. Chemotherapy treatments are followed by surgery designed to physically remove a mesothelioma tumor mass (extrapleural pneumonectomy is often performed as part of trimodality therapy). Postoperative radiation therapy is used for the final step, to target any lingering mesothelioma cells. Although trimodality therapy has been unable to eradicate malignant mesothelioma, it has proven to be effective in significantly prolonging patients’ survival time by as much as five years (the average post-diagnosis survival time is one to two years).
New mesothelioma treatments have been researched and developed with the hope of succeeding where traditional methods have not. Mesothelioma researchers are optimistic that new mesothelioma treatment modalities will eventually prove to be successful, though they have yet to yield results that are any better than traditional methods.

New treatments for mesothelioma include:
Development of new chemotherapy agents
Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)
Photodynamic therapy (PDT)
Immunotherapy
Gene therapy
The progression of mesothelioma, as with other cancerous diseases, is typically broken into stages, with the treatment options based on the stage of the disease. The commonly used staging for mesothelioma is the Brigham staging system and it is described as follows.
Stages of Mesothelioma
Stage 1 occurs when the tumor lies completely within the capsule of the pleura, without swollen lymph nodes (adenopathy).
Stage 2 has the characteristics of Stage 1, where the tumor has spread and there is presence of adenopathy. But in Stage 2 the boundaries of the tumor allow for a resection (removal of the tumor) without cutting into other organs.
Stage 3 includes extension of the disease into the chest wall or into the heart, through the diaphragm or peritoneum, or outside the pleura to involve the lymph nodes.
Stage 4 occurs when the cancer has formed in distant organs through metastases.
Treatment options for the management of malignant mesothelioma include:
chemotherapy
surgery
radiation
multimodality treatment
However, none of the treatment strategies have been shown to be particularly effective against the disease.

Mesothelioma treatment - surgery

The surgery is a major step in the confirmation, and knowing the type of cancer. It can be used in patients with the combination of radiation and chemotherapy used before and after surgery.

Pleurectomy:
The most common surgery for the treatment of Mesothelioma pleurectomy, in which doctors open the chest of the patient and remove excess liquid or a tumor from the wall of the lung (pleura). Although this method to control the accumulation of fluid and reduces the pain, it’s not a cure. However, if the tumor is in its original form and does not have much further, pleurectomy can increase the survival rate of patients when used with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Moreover, a pleurectomy can in patients less than the approval of the conditions for the health and the death rate is lower than the extrapleuralen lung resection.

Extrapleural Pneumonectomy (EPP):
Extrapleural lung resection (EPP) is a serious and invasive form of surgery, the patients on Mesothelioma. In this treatment is a part of the lung, pleura (the wall of the lung tissue), pericardium (lining of the heart) and the mid-aperture, so that the tumor cells are removed. He takes the progress of mesothelioma, which the patient to breathe without a problem. It is normally associated with patients who are in the early stages of the disease, and when the tumor in the chest cavity. EPP is recommended for patients with a good heart and lung conditions, so that the severity of post-operative term. Although the operation in combination with chemotherapy and radiotherapy promising results, there is no guaranteed cure. The studies have shown that patients with therapies extrapleuralen lung resection, and have an average life span of 35 months after surgery, compared to only 9 months pleurectomy. But some doctors question of surgery, to the high risks arising from the internal bleeding, blood clotting, inflammation of the lungs, the accumulation of pus, shortness of breath and even death. So many surgeons recommend that the idea pleurectomy place of the technical complexity of the EPP.

Thoracentèse:
A small surgery is often performed on patients who can not be expanded or EPP pleurectomy, thoracentèse. In thoracentèse, thoracic surgeon inserts a needle into the chest of the patient to remove the excess fluid accumulated in the wall of the lung (pleura). This method is still not the cancer cure, but the symptoms to alleviate painful mesothelioma. In some cases, talc or other officials with a patient in the vaults of the scar in the chest wall and to help them breathe properly, without the tumor to increase to a certain degree.

Paracentèse:
Paracentèse is a similar method, with a needle to the liquid, but the abdominal section of the body. It follows the same procedure for the recovery of the liquid mucosa of the stomach and other organs abdominal muscle training. Patients with peritoneal mesothelioma paracentesis are responsible for the surgery.