Just What the Heck is 'Mesothelioma' Anyway?

I couldn’t sleep, again, last night, so I started flicking through channels. As I did, I found myself bombarded with commercials, yet again, for mesothelioma attorneys.

This sparked my curiosity. I understood that it had something to do with asbestos exposure, that much I got from the commercials, and that it was common enough to warrant the spending of a good deal of money for lawyers to advertise their desire to find clients for this one particular issue, but I know nothing else about it. I decided to research.

So, What is it exactly?

Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that tends to attack the lining of the lungs, stomach or heart, and is rarely not linked to asbestos exposure. Essentially, having been exposed to asbestos isn’t a guarantee that you’ll end up with mesothelioma, but if you have the illness you’ve most likely been exposed to asbestos.

Symptoms tend not to show up for a good long while, which complicates matters, as this makes diagnosis much more difficult until it’s already well developed. In turn, that can drastically limit treatment options.

So, What are the symptoms?

There are a few different forms of the disease, each having their own set of symptoms.

If the disease is in your lungs (pleural mesothelioma), you’ll most likely experience symptoms much like pneumonia, or other lung conditions, which include; shortness of breath, persistent dry coughing, fever, fatigue, night sweats, pain in your chest, unexplained sudden weight loss, coughing up blood, difficulty swallowing, or feeling lumps under the skin on your chest.

If the disease is in your stomach (peritoneal mesothelioma), you’ll run into many of the same symptoms, without the coughing. So; night sweats, fever, fatigue, unexplained sudden weight loss, pain in the abdomen, anemia, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, and/or lumps under the skin of the stomach.

If the disease is in your heart (pericardial mesothelioma), you may experience; chest pain, an irregular heart beat, fever, night sweats, and/or difficulty breathing.

If you happen to have the rarest form, testicular mesothelioma, the only known symptom is lumps under the skin in the testicular area, which might not be painful, but may.

What are the treatment options?

The available treatment options are pretty much the same as they would be for any other form of cancer. There’s surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. There is also the availability of gene therapy (targeting the cancer cells through the use of genetic material, specifically in order to make them more vulnerable to chemo) and photodynamic therapy (using light energy to kill the cancer cells).

For more information on mesothelioma, treatments, symptoms, causes, studies, etc. - I used the following sites in my research.

Asbestos.com
Cancer.gov
Mesothelioma center
Mesothelioma.com

**I originally posted this article on Xomba after a restless night of no sleep.**