The people most at risk from being carriers of this cancer are those have worked with asbestos over the past thirty to fifty years. Because of this, the disease is most common in men between the ages of sixty and seventy as this is the group that commonly worked with asbestos during those years. Because of the lack of protection and regulations in those days, these workers were exposed to the dust and fibres from the asbestos, which caused the cells of the mesothelium to become abnormal. However, because the disease takes decades to develop fully and manifest, many of them were oblivious to this until thirty to fifty years later. It is these men who are now lodging multi-million dollar lawsuits against the unscrupulous companies that exposed them to the dangers of asbestos, even though they were aware that it could cause harm to the employees.
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Chemotherapy is given in pill form or injected. In the case of mesothelioma patients, the drugs are given intrapleurally (into the chest cavity) or intraperitoneally (into the abdominal cavity). Doctors usually combine two drugs for the best result. Currently, the preferred combination is Alimta© (pemetrexed) and Cisplatin, but other drugs are used in tandem if deemed preferable for a specific patient. In some cases, patients can only tolerate a single drug so only one is used for treatment.

Other drugs are given to the patient to combat the unpleasant side effects of chemo, such as medication to relieve nausea and vomiting or vitamins to replace essential ones lost during chemotherapy.

Some patients decide that the side effects of chemotherapy are too severe and opt not to receive this treatment.

How Does Chemotherapy Help?
Quite simply, chemotherapy - treatment with a specific cancer drug or combination of drugs - kills cancer cells. Unlike surgery and radiation therapy, which can destroy cancer cells in one particular location, chemotherapy can be used to destroy cells that have metastasized - or spread to other parts of the body.

There are currently about 100 chemotherapy drugs on the market. Though single chemo drugs are sometimes used to treat a particular type of cancer, more often a few of these drugs are used in tandem. This is called combination chemotherapy. Some combinations have proved more helpful than others in fighting mesothelioma and its troublesome symptoms. Because all of these drugs work a bit differently, your oncologist will determine which are best suited to treating your disease. The doctor will also be able to determine the length of your course of treatment as well as the frequency of treatments.

What to Expect

Chemotherapy is not a miracle drug, especially where mesothelioma is concerned, so it’s necessary to be patient when dealing with the treatment. Most patients receiving chemotherapy for the first time will be especially concerned about side effects. Different chemo drugs have different side effects, but your doctor should be able to tell you what to expect.

Because your doctor has experience with specific chemo drugs, he/she may also be able to tell you when to expect the side effects, how long they’ll last, and what to do about them. These days, there are many options available to help minimize or avoid these side effects so the chemotherapy of today is much different than that of decades or even years ago. Remember, also, that most of these side effects will disappear when the treatment has ended.

Types of Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is received either by means of a pill or intravenously via a needle in the vein. Chemotherapy drugs may be administered 1) systemically - which means that the drugs are carried through the blood stream; or 2) intrapleurally - injected directly into the site of the tumor, with in the case of mesothelioma is usually the pleura, the lining of the lung. Doctors have had some success with both methods.

Chemo and Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma is a very aggressive form of cancer, so doctors treat it as aggressively as possible. That includes the use of highly toxic chemo drugs that will, hopefully, help destroy cancer cells while also providing some relief from the bothersome side affects of the disease, such as coughing, shortness of breath, and chest pain.

Years ago, doctors opted for single chemotherapy treatments for the disease. Unfortunately, they yielded little more than approximately a 15% success rate, providing minimal relief to the mesothelioma patient. More recently, oncologists and research scientists have determined that the best way to fight mesothelioma is through combination chemotherapy.

Currently, the drugs of choice are a newer drug, Alimta (pemetrexed), combined with Cisplatin, which has been on the market for some time. As a matter of fact, Alimta, when given with cisplatin, is the first and only chemotherapy drug to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma when surgery is not an option.

Other common chemotherapy drugs used to treat mesothelioma include gemcitabine, vinorelbine, and onconase. Researchers continue to experiment with new drugs and new combinations of chemotherapy medications in hopes that they can find the best available to treat the disease and its symptoms.

The most common chemotherapy side effects include:

Nausea
Vomiting
Low white blood cell count (which leaves you prone to infection)
Loss of appetite
Constipation
Fatigue
Fever and chills
Low platelet count (which may cause problems with clotting)
Generalized achy-ness
Tingling hands and feet
Rash
Depression

It’s important to tell your doctor about any side effects you might experience, even if they are noted as “common” side effects of your chemotherapy. High fever, inability to eat or drink, blood in the stool or urine, and signs of infection should be addressed immediately. Your doctor will inform you about other side effects which he/she considers life-threatening.

The symptoms of pericardial mesothelioma, like other cancer, can take decades to manifest. If a person worked with asbestos 20-30 years ago and shows no symptoms, that does not mean that they have the health is clear. The typically symptoms take around twenty or thirty years to manifest anyway, sometimes even longer.

This means that the cancer is usually too advanced to treat effectively by the time it is diagnosed! (more…)

This form of mesothelioma attacks the lungs and respiratory areas of the body. The cancer attacks the cells and the lining (known as the pleura) of the lungs and ribs. As with other forms of mesothelioma, the symptoms can take twenty or thirty years (sometimes longer) to present themselves following exposure to asbestos, making it impossible for people to realise that they have been affected until it is too late. (more…)

This disease is sometimes referred to as diffuse peritoneal mesothelioma, and this is where the cancer has spread out. Accountable for around 10% of mesothelioma cases, this type of asbestos cancer is the second most common (after Pleural Mesothelioma). (more…)