Looking for mesothelioma information? The following section provides extensive information about mesothelioma, including symptoms, treatment, and more. Click on an item in the menu below to jump to that topic:

Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer. It comes from cells of the mesothelium that covers many internal organs. There are about 2,000 cases of mesothelioma diagnosed in the United States each year. Mesothelioma comes from exposure to asbestos. Asbestos is a cancer causing material used in many different kinds of products. Many companies kept using it even after they knew that it was dangerous.

Although rare, mesothelioma cancer is not a death sentence. The longest-living mesothelioma survivor in the world wrote a free book about it.

Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer. It is sometimes called asbestos cancer. It comes from cells of the mesothelium, the lining that covers many of the internal organs.

The main purpose of the mesothelium is to make the fluid between tissues and organs. This fluid provides a slippery and protective surface to allow movement.

The fluid allows the lungs to expand and contract inside the body each time you take a breath. When the cells of the mesothelium turn cancerous they become mesothelioma. That is where the name comes from.

Mesothelioma is a rare disease. There are only approximately 2,000 cases diagnosed in the United States every year. Many more cases occur around the world. It is most common in Australia and the U.K. where they used large amounts of asbestos.

Number of cases per year in other countries:

Discover More Statistics

There are four types of malignant mesothelioma: Pleural, peritoneal, pericardial and testicular. Pleural mesothelioma affects the outer lining of the lungs and chest wall. It represents about 75% of all cases. Peritoneal mesothelioma affects the abdomen and represents about 23%. Incidences of cases in the lining of the testis and the heart represent about 1% each.

When then pleural lining around the lungs and chest wall are involved in this cancer it is called pleural mesothelioma. There are actually two layers of tissue that comprise the pleural lining. The outer layer, the parietal pleura, lines the entire inside of the chest cavity. The inner layer is called the visceral pleura and it covers the lungs.

Mesothelioma usually affects both layers of the pleura. Often it forms in one layer of the pleura and invades the other layer. The cancer may form many small tumors throughout this tissue.

Learn More About Pleural Mesothelioma

When the peritoneum, the protective membrane that surrounds the abdomen is involved in this cancer it is called peritoneal mesothelioma. Just like pleural mesothelioma, there are two layers of tissues involved with the peritoneum, the parietal layer covers the abdominal cavity, while the visceral layer surrounds the stomach, liver and other organs.

The cancer often forms many small tumors throughout the tissue. One doctor has described it as if someone took a pepper shaker and scattered the pepper over the tissue.

Learn More About Peritoneal Mesothelioma

In addition to the different types of locations within the body, there are also different cell types. These types are all considered mesothelioma, but they can affect the patients prognosis.

The three mesothelioma cell types are: epithelioid, sarcomatoid and biphasic.

Epithelioid mesothelioma cells are the most common type of mesothelioma cell and has the best prognosis of the three cell types. Notice the dark purple, elongated egg shaped cells amongst the healthy pink colored tissue.

Sarcomatoid mesothelioma cells are the rarest of the three cell types and tends to be more aggressive than epitheloid cells. Notice the dark purple nodules amongst the healthy light purple colored tissue.

Biphasic mesothelioma cells are mixtures of both cell types (epithelioid and sacromatoid) and usually has a prognosis that reflects the dominant cell type.

More Symptoms

More Symptoms

Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos and it is therefore considered the asbestos caused cancer.

Asbestos has been in use since ancient times, but after the Industrial Revolution its use became widespread and was used all over the world in thousands of industrial and consumer products even after many companies knew that it was dangerous. Construction materials, automotive parts and household products such as hair dryers and oven mitts contained asbestos in the past.

Today, asbestos has been outlawed in most places around the world, however, asbestos has not been outlawed in the United States and is still found in millions of homes and public buildings, such as schools, offices and parking garages.

Learn More About Causes

Asbestos is actually a naturally occurring mineral found throughout the world. It was called the magic mineral because it is resistant to heat and corrosion. Also, it is a fiber so it can be woven into other materials.

Asbestos is composed of millions of sharp microscopic fibers. These fibers are so small that the body has difficulty filtering them out. This means that if you around airborne asbestos you may inhale it or ingest it. This is known as asbestos exposure.

The actual process as to how asbestos causes mesothelioma is still being investigated. Most scientists believe that when the small sharp fibers are ingested or inhaled they cause cell damage which can cause chronic inflammation.

This inflammation can then set the stage for disease after many years or even decades. Some scientists believe that a persons immune system may actually help prevent the cancer, even if that person is exposed to asbestos.

Find Out More On Asbestos

Since asbestos causes this rare disease, how to people get exposed to asbestos? While asbestos was in thousands of products, workers in some professions had more exposure to this carcinogen than others.

Examples of occupations that exposed workers to asbestos includes: Navy veterans, construction trades such as electricians, mechanics, and plumbers, people working in power houses and power plants, firefighters, and refinery workers. Individuals in these professions often had a multitude of asbestos containing products on their various job sites.

Most asbestos containing products were removed voluntarily by the late 1970s. However, because there is no comprehensive ban on asbestos in the U.S. and because of the long latency period, people are still being diagnosed with mesothelioma today.

Learn More About Occupational Asbestos Exposure

The history of asbestos in the United States and other industrialized countries is a sad story of corporate greed. Companies that produced asbestos containing products saw their workers becoming sick with lung scarring, asbestosis, and cancer nearly 100 years ago.

Some companies even brought in researchers and scientists to better understand the health impact of asbestos. Once it was shown that their magic mineral was toxic to human beings, the industry faced a dilemma.

Should they protect workers, warn consumers, notify public health officials, and most importantly, phase out this dangerous mineral? Their answer was no.

Instead industry did just the opposite. They warned no one, kept their knowledge about asbestos secret and continued to use it for decades! Only by the 1960s did independent researchers like Dr. Irving Selikoff of Mt. Sinai School of Medicinebegin to connect asbestos exposure to disease.

By then hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were already exposed to this deadly mineral. The EPA would ban asbestos in 1989. However, the asbestos industry would sue the EPA and win.

In 1991 the ban was lifted. Even today, there is no comprehensive asbestos ban in the United States. Sad but true.

(Asbestos Medical and Legal Aspects by Barry Castleman)

People exposed directly to asbestos are called primary exposed. Sometimes the person who is primary exposed will transfer asbestos fibers from their clothes to the clothes of another person. The person who gets this transfer of asbestos exposure is said to have secondary exposure.

One example of secondary exposure is called the deadly hug. Sadly, the deadly hug happens when an adult comes home from work with asbestos on their clothes and hugs their son or daughter, unknowingly transferring the dangerous fibers to their child. There have been many cases of adults being diagnosed with mesothelioma whose only exposure to asbestos came from their time as a child.

Read About Secondary Exposure

There is a long latency period for mesothelioma which is the time from asbestos exposure to diagnosis of the cancer. This period can range anywhere from 20 to 50 years. There are different theories as to why there is such a long latency period and why most people exposed to asbestos do not get mesothelioma.

One theory suggests that there may be other variables that play a role. For example, some doctors believe that the condition or competency of a persons immune system could determine whether asbestos in their body leads to cancer.

Other possibilities include a persons genes and diet.

When doctors suspect a patient has mesothelioma they will initiate a work-upin order to make a diagnosis. This work-up may include imaging scans, biopsies, pathology exams, blood tests and staging.

Diagnosing Mesothelioma

Various types of scans may be used to determine if there are signs of tumors or other abnormalities. These scans may include X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, or PET scans.

More on Imaging

If scans reveal what doctors believe may be a cancer then a biopsy may be suggested. A biopsy is a procedure where doctors remove a small piece of the suspected tumor tissue from the patients body.

More on Biopsies

Blood tests and biomarkers may sometimes be used to determine if mesothelioma is present in the body. While these tests are helpful they are not considered as important as the biopsy which is considered the gold standard.

More on Biomarkers

The biopsy material will then be given to a pathologist. A pathologist will use special stains and other tests to determine if there is cancer and identify exactly what type of cancer was removed from the patient.

More on Pathology Exams

If mesothelioma is diagnosed, doctors may stage the disease. Over the years a variety of staging systems have been used. The one used most frequently today groups the disease into localized (only in the mesothelium) or advanced (spread outside the mesothelium).

More on Staging

The prognosis of mesothelioma or any other cancer depends on a number of variables. Those variables include:

More on Prognosis

A doctor specializing in mesothelioma can properly diagnose you and determine the best course of treatment. Find a mesothelioma specialist or doctor near you.

The treatments for mesothelioma can be divided into three paths: Conventional Therapies, Clinical Trials, and Alternative Modalities.

Conventional therapies include chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. The standard chemo drugs used are Alimta (pemetrexed) and cisplatin (or carboplatin). They are often prescribed for the various types of mesothelioma, regardless of location. Both chemo and radiation therapy are known as cytotoxic or cell killing therapies. They work indiscriminately, killing both healthy and cancer cells. This is the reason that they can have severe side effects.

Learn About Treatment

The standard of care in many hospitals is to treat peritoneal mesothelioma with surgery and HIPEC. HIPEC stands for hyperthermic intraperitoneal perioperative chemotherapy which basically means flushing the surgical area with heated chemotherapy during the surgical procedure. The obvious advantage of this approach is that it enables doctors to put the chemo in exactly the place it needs to be.

Of all the conventional treatments available, surgery is generally considered the most effective. For pleural mesothelioma, there are various types of surgical procedures, including lung sparring surgery (also called pleurectomy/decorticiaton or PD) and extrapleural pneumonectomy (also called EPP).

Pleurectomy/decortication surgery is a two-part surgery that removes the lining surrounding one lung (pleurectomy), then removes any visible cancer seen growing inside the chest cavity (decortication). The advantage of P/D or lung sparring surgery is exactly what the name implies a lung is not removed.

An extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) is a much more invasive surgery than PD. An EPP involves removing a lung, the diaphragm, portions of the chest lining and heart lining, and nearby lymph nodes.

Numerous studies have been performed comparing the prognosis with a pleurectomy/decortications surgery versus an extrapleural pneumonectomy. While there is no consensus on the subject, the latest reports suggest that PD may be a better choice for many patients because survival is generally equivalent to EPP and PD is less invasive and therefore easier to tolerate.

There are also other surgical procedures used to treat pleural effusion. Pleural effusion is the buildup of excess fluid in the pleural space between the visceral and parietal linings of the lungs. Examples of these procedures include pleurodesis and thoracentesis.

More on Surgery

Clinical trials are treatments that are still being tested. These treatments may include chemotherapy or other more innovative approaches based on immune therapy, gene therapy or other biological approaches. One example of new treatments being tried in mesothelioma involve the use of monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies are essentially an immune system therapy that tries to use antibodies to target cancer cells. The National Cancer Institute indexes clinical trials offered throughout the country.

Discover Clinical Trials

Alternative modalities include a large number of approaches such as intravenous vitamin therapy, herbs and Traditional Chinese Medicine, cannabis oil, dietary approaches, and mind-body medicine. It is important to note that while none of these modalities are FDA approved, there are a number of long-term mesothelioma survivors who have used them, including Paul Kraus.

Read About Alternative Treatments

Mesothelioma is not the only disease caused by asbestos. Asbestosis which is essentially scarred lung tissue, pleural plaques and some lung cancers can also be caused by asbestos. There may also be compensation available to victims of these diseases as well. Treatments vary by condition.

Learn About Other Asbestos Diseases

Curcumin is a natural occurring phytochemical found in turmeric, which is an Indian spice that gives curry powder its characteristic golden color. A study published by Jill M. Miller in Cancer Prevention Research suggest that curcumin can attach malignant mesothelioma cells in two ways. First, curcumin was able to induce pyroptosis, a highly inflammatory form of programmed cell death, in human malignant mesothelioma cells. In addition, curcumin was shown to protect against inflammation, which is a key mediator in the development of malignant mesothelioma and may be a key contributor to the dismal prognosis associated with the condition. Consequently, consumption of curcumin can offer a two-pronged attack against malignant mesothelioma by inducing pyroptosis in malignant mesothelioma cells as well as protecting against inflammation.

Nutritional status may also play a role in mesothelioma prognosis. The Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) score was developed as a screening tool for early detection of poor nutritional status. A recent study published in a medical journal suggests that mesothelioma patients who were well nourished and had a CONUT score 2, had greater overall survival rates than those who were nutritionally challenged, CONUT score 3.

Treatments for mesothelioma can alter the appetite either because people are physically unable to eat properly due to the cancer or the treatment such as chemo, or because the taste of food is altered. Regardless, adequate nutrition is paramount for people with mesothelioma because patients often lose essential muscle and weight after diagnosis which can dramatically impact their prognosis. Consequently, eating a well-balanced diet can help people feel better when undergoing treatment for malignant mesothelioma.

Therefore, screening for nutritional status prior to treatment, consuming some dietary phytochemicals, as well as eating an overall well-balanced diet should help improve the outcome and overall state of well-being for patients undergoing treatment for malignant mesothelioma.

More:

Mesothelioma: How Has Paul Kraus Survived For Over 20 Years?