Treatment of Mesothelioma - Cure Mesothelioma

Latest researches and promising advancements in field of medical science are raising hopes of new treatment of mesothelioma for patients of aggressive cancers like malignant mesothelioma.Several new approaches of treating malignant mesothelioma are being considered even as we interact , but before we look at the new treatment of mesothelioma being tested , let's first familiarize ourselves with what is mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is the uncontrolled cell division in a membrane called mesothelium that protects most of the internal organs of our body and produces a fluid between it's two adjacent layers thus facilitating the smooth gliding of moving organs like lungs and heart against agdjacent structures.In other words, mesothelioma is the cancer of the membrane known as mesothelium.The dividing cancerous mesothelial cells can invade adjacent tissues and can also spread or metastasize to other parts of the body.

The most common cause of mesothelioma is exposure to Asbestos.Asbestos is a mineral that was widely used in construction works ,it has tiny fibers that can be inhaled during breathing and can make their way into our lungs , where the fibers can penetrate the lung tissue and settle on the pleura, the mesothelial membrane covering our lungs.The asbestos fibers can trigger the mutation of a gene thereby initiating uncontrolled cell division in the pleura resulting in pleural mesothelioma.

Similarly, being small, the Asbestos fibers can also be swallowed and enter the digestive tract where the can move into the membrane lining our abdominal wall called peritoneum and cause peritoneal mesothelioma.When this process is repeated in the membrane surrounding the heart , it's referred to as pericardial mesothelioma. 

In experiments involving animals, the Simian virus SV40 has been found to cause mesothelioma.However, no definitive link between SV40 and mesothelioma has been established.

Thorium Dioxide, previously used in x-ray imaging , has also been known to cause mesothelioma , but since being established as a probable carcinogen , Thorium dioxide is no longer used for x-ray purposes.

The treatment of mesothelioma is often complicated and the best course has to be determined based on various factors like the age of the patient, the location of the mesothelioma, the stage of disease etc.Hence, several renowned institutes are involved in finding better and newer mesothelioma treatment to eliminame this disease. In fact, as recently as in December 2008 , the discovery of the manner of interaction of Asbestos fibers with human cells has thrilled scientists with the possibility of a better cure for mesothelioma patients.But before discussing that, let us briefly run through some of the traditional mesothelioma treatment options.

Surgery : Surgically removing part of the lining of the affected organ and it's surrounding tissue is considered the most common option.Depending on the stage of the disease and location of the cancerous cells, even the organ or a part of it may have to be removed to prevent it from spreading.

Radiotherapy : High energy beams are used to destroy the cancer cells in the affected area and shrink the size of tumors.

Chemotherapy : Mesothelioma chemotherapy involves destroying the cancer cells and arresting their metastasis in the patient's body by intravenously injecting Anticancer drugs.

Mesothelioma, like most other cancers , usually gets detected in the latter stages , when it has already metastasized to surrounding organs and damaged the tissue there.So far, scientists have been focusing on treating the disease in it's latter stages , but now , they are considering a new approach of developing tools that help in early diagnosis of the disease.Some of the recent treatment of mesothelioma options under consideration are :

Anti-Angiogenesis drugs : When the tumor spreads, the cells need a source of blood to provide them nutrition to survive.Thus, they synthesize new blood vessels.Anti-angiogenesis drugs prevent the tumor cells from creating new blood vessels thereby stopping their growth.Several drugs are in the trial stages for example : A Phase II trial of Bevacizumab and Erlotinib for previously treated mesothelioma are in the process.

Immunotherapy : Immunotherapy is the process of enhancing and using the biological response of the inbuilt defence system of the body to counter and fight against the diseases , in this case, mesothelioma.This is achieved by feeding the body biological response modifiers (BRMs) that alter the interaction between the immune system and the cancerous cells.The BRMs assist the body to distinguish the cancerous cells from the normal cells and suppress their growth by altering the pattern of their growth,preventing the cancerous cells from spreading and blocking or reversing the factors that cause the change of a normal cell into a cancerous cell.

Thus, these BRMs enhance and strengthen the natural anticancerous response of the body.Some of the BRMs naturally exist in our body and several BRMs can now be synthesized in the laboratory.There can be three types of immunotherapies : Active , Passive and non specific.

• Active immonutherapy stimulates the natural defence mechanism within the body to fight against the cancerous cells
• Passive immunotherapy uses BMRs or components created outside the body against mesothelioma
• Non specific immunotherapy also stimulates body's immune mechanism to counter mesothelioma , but their target cells aren't as well defined as active immunotherapy.

Gene Therapy : This involves correcting and treating the disease at the DNA level itself and is the most promising of the new mesothelioma treatment options being tested.In gene therapy , two basic approaches are used to treat mesothelioma. The first involves is replacing the mutated gene with a healthy copy of that gene to control the cell division.This process is called Replacement Gene Therapy and mostly replaces the p53 gene ,that once mutated , can lead to cancer.

The second process involves Knockout Gene Therapy.As the name suggests, this process blocks the cancerous genes by directly targeting the product of cancerous genes or oncogenes thus inactivating cell growth. 

The most glaring differences in traditional ways of malignant mesothelioma treatment compared to the new mesothelioma treatment is that the traditional ways were reactive and attempt to cure the cancerous cells whereas the modern and the more recent approach is preventive and corrective in nature.

Another important discovery recently made by scientists of the Ohio university recognises the mechanism that Asbestos fibers use to interact with human cells to cause mesothelioma.This knowledge is believed to be pivotal in finding ways to treat pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma.

Nanotechnology is one of the most promising technologies of scientific research that can have huge implications on the future of medicine.Nanotechnology can be used to create units/technologies of the size of ten to the power minus nine or one billionth of a meter and is comparable to the size of individual molecules.Thus, in future , the process of treatment using this technology can beexpected to be ultrarefined and much swifter.Just to illustrate what this means for future generations ,during summer of 2008 researchers from Stanford developed carbon nanotubes that bypassed normal tissues and delivered the chemo through a nano-tech based delivery system directly into malignant cells.

A member of the patient's family can file a mesothelioma lawsuit within a definite time frame of the diagnosis of the disease.As mesothelioma lawyers generally work on "no win no fee basis", one doesn't have to worry about the costs involved in a mesothelioma lawsuit.