Asbestos in mesothelioma

Mesothelioma immunotherapy is the treatment methodology where the body’s immune system is used to fight the mesothelioma cancer cells. The immune system will be able to fight the cancer cells to some extent. The immune system could segregate cancer healthy and unhealthy cells. The unhealthy cells secrete a type of antigen which makes them recognizable. On detection of the cancer cell specific chemicals are induced in them to kill the cells.

What brings the complication in mesothelioma is that the mesothelioma cancer cells don’t secrete any antigen to make them identifiable as damaged cells to the immune system. Also if the immune system of the patient lacks a certain proteins then the treatment procedure would involve supplementing the protein as well.

Immunotherapy could be passive or active. In passive immunotherapy the cancer cells are not destroyed, while in active immunotherapy the cancer cells are killed. Here the drugs are used like vaccines, but not to avoid the spreading of the disease and to simulate the production of antibiotics to kill the mesothelioma cells.

Immunostaining is used to define the drugs to be used in the immunotherapy treatment procedure.

Here the cancer tissues are taken and clinically tested to define the chemicals to be used in the therapy.

Mesothelioma is generally a hard to treat cancer. But photodynamic therapy is something which makes the ailment easy to handle. The advantage of this specific treatment is that it helps even in case if metastases have happened as the treatment targets only the cancer cells.

The procedure involves a small surgical process where a slit is made in the chest area and a tube is inserted. Through this the cancer cells are photosensitized, which is a process of making them sensible to light. A photo sensitizing agent and a photo sensitizer are used to accomplish this. Through fiber optics light at a specific wavelength is administered to interact with the tumor.

The procedure is actually very painful for the patient and has an impact on the day to day living. The side effects caused by the treatments are

• The patient becomes completely photosensitive, thus should be avoiding sun light

• There is a feeling of nausea and a metallic taste is felt by the patients

Apart from these there are certain drawbacks as well

• The light cannot penetrate beyond two or three inches, making treatment of larger tumors impossible

• Also the drugs tend to show a dissipation effect after few hours of administration

Photodynamic therapy is a very effective treatment option if the side effects and the drawbacks.

Treatment options of mesothelioma are not very wide and it becomes really important to decide the best case specific treatment option. The conventional treatment methods are mesothelioma surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Radiation therapy is done using high power X ray to kill the cancer cells, where as chemotherapy is the usage of the drugs to kill the cancer cells.

More research on the disease has opened a number of treatment avenues. To name a few there is

• Photodynamic therapy:

Light is nothing but charge. In photodynamic therapy we use light in various frequencies to attack the cancer cells. The best advantage of this therapy is that it targets only cancer cells which make it a desired treatment option even in case of metastasis.

• Immunotherapy:

This is the technique where the body’s immune system is boosted with extra supplements of proteins like cytokines, interferon which is very much needed for fighting cancer.

• Mesothelioma Gene Therapy:

The genes of the patient’s cells are mutated making them killer cells which destroy any mesothelioma cancer cells they encounter. This cell is injected into the tumor thus initiating the destruction of the tumor.

Apart from these there are a number of alternative treatment methods available as well.

A disease with by far the longest latency is mesothelioma. It ranges from ten to fifty years. Sometimes this is leads to a scenario where sometimes the victim dies even before the latency is over.  The health problems never show immediately after the asbestos exposure.

The fiber really takes a long time to reach the mesothelioma and act as needles on the lining cells inducing an inflammation and developing channels for the cancer cells to grow. A number of factors affect the latency.

• Metabolic rate:

People with faster metabolic rate generally tend to have a shorter latency, because the pace at which the inflammation starts is faster.

• Exposure Pattern

People might be exposed for a short time to higher levels of asbestos or a long time for low levels of the compound or a medium duration to higher levels or medium duration and lower levels. This also decides the latency period and the symptoms as well.

• Asbestos Trace:

If there is a chance that the small fibers are detected in the body during some other examination then there is a chance the person could be saved from the attack.

Also the type of mesothelioma does not have anything to do with the latency.

Intense research on the mesothelioma  has left the oncologists with no other possible cause for the disease is only the asbestos. These minute particles of asbestos generally target the soft tissues of the mesothelium and pierce them creating scar tissues thus paving a path for the development of mesothelioma tumors. The tumors could be benign or malignant, malignant ones being the dangerous.

In epithelial mesothelioma the tumors could develop on the lungs as well. They could develop inside or outside the lungs and give a different picture in different angles. Expert oncologists would be able to sort this variation in the tumors during the diagnosis.  The asbestos induced mesothelioma is very aggressive.  Surgical removal is the most successful treatment approach of asbestos cancer tumors. Even the post surgical treatments have to be very rigorous to contain the disease.

The most common variations of asbestos found in the environment, especially in the cement, plastic, mining industries are crocidolite, amosite and anthophylite. These particles are very dreaded and a mesothelioma infection with a negative prognosis is usually the result of exposure to these kinds of asbestos. People who think they have had an asbestos exposure at any point of time could very well go for a mesothelioma diagnosis to be on the safer side.