The Maune Raichle Law Firm

Mesothelioma Treatments

There are many treatments for mesothelioma currently in development which promise to continue to improve long term survival rate. The issue with treating mesothelioma is that the type of medicine used to kill cancer cells also kills healthy cells and can result in serious, long-term, side effects. Certain chemotherapy regimens have been known to permanently affect a person's maximum lung capacity and ability to process oxygen. Because of this there are different types of chemotherapy options and choices since each person will have a different tolerance to particular treatments.

The goal of continued development of treatments is to eventually find one which has no side effects and eliminates all cancer cells in the shortest possible time period. This goal is usually moved toward one step at a time and involves blending mixtures of commonly used chemicals to cause desired effects without undesirable side effects. Mesothelioma treatments tend to have a chemotherapy cocktail all its own but tends to borrow from other cancer treatments; sharing success is one way that all chemotherapy is becoming better.

Aside from chemotherapy, surgical removal of tumors and radiation are also used in the treatment of mesothelioma. Typically a treatment schedule uses a combination of all three therapies and begins by removing as much of the tumor(s) as possible. Radiation is used before, but also during and after chemotherapy in an attempt to kill targeted groups of cells. Chemotherapy tends to not be as selective and is a true systemic treatment negatively affecting the majority of the body. The ideal situation is to use particular chemicals which will affect only one type of cells and have no effect on all other cells in the body. Though this is not easy, new treatments are being developed which promise to make treatment more effective and less destructive.