A patient’s basic options for conventional treatment of mesothelioma are surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation, or sometimes a combination of treatments.
Surgery & Procedures
Curative surgery is performed to remove as much cancer as possible, but is not common as mesothelioma is usually diagnosed at a stage too late to perform such a surgery.
Palliative procedures are performed to ease symptoms.
- Pneumonectomy
Mesothelioma patients with cancer only in one lung are candidates for this type of curative surgery and it is only done if the cancer is in Stage I or Stage II. The diseased lung is removed in this type of surgery.
- Extrapleural Pneumonectomy
This type of curative surgery is very risky and only performed in rare situations. It is removal of the entire lung as well as the areas surrounding it.
- Pleurodesis
This type of procedure involves inserting talc into the pleural space to cause inflammation and stop fluid from collecting for up to a few years.
- Pleurocentesis/Paracentesis
This type of outpatient procedure involves withdrawing fluid from the pleural space with a long thin needle to relieve pain symptoms for the patient.
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