Of all the asbestos related disease brought on by asbestos dust (mesothelioma), pericardial mesothelioma is the most rare, accounting for a small fraction of all occurrences (5%). It is really a malignancy that grows on the pericardium (the lining with the heart). This is a delicate ‘film’, and any contamination on the pericardium can have fatal consequences.

As soon as someone has been diagnosed with pericardial mesothelioma they are offered three different therapy choices. These are radiation, surgical treatment and chemotherapy. Pericardial Mesothelioma is extremely difficult to treat (due to the complexity involved with removing the cancers from the pericardium), and a person’s odds of success tend to be small. All three methods possess a poor success rate primarily due to the fact that pericardial mesothelioma is discovered in the advanced phases of progression. (The reason for this is simply because in the earlier stages with the cancer the symptoms appear like those of ailments like pneumonia). The prognosis for a patient undergoing therapy at this time (mature stage) is usually less than one year.

Before therapy, the patient demands a physician’s assessment so that you can figure out which with the three treatment options are suited to him/her. Particulars for example age, bodyweight, health background, and general well-being are considered prior to the start of therapy. So, how can youtreat pericardial mesothelioma ?

Radiation – Just like all cancer treatment options that use this technique, large doses of radiation are used to destroy the cancer cellular material on the pericardium. The down-side to radiation therapy is that not only will you be killing the cancerous cells, but you’re additionally damaging your essential organs in close proximity to the heart, namely the lungs. The heart also will get damaged (due to the large doses of radiation).

Surgery – We can break this into 2 components; aggressive surgical treatment and palliative procedures. Aggressive surgical treatment involves the removal with the cancerous cell. As these are very close to the heart and lungs, this makes it an extremely dangerous process and something that demands an extremely experienced surgeon.

Palliative procedures are used in the latest of phases of pericardial mesothelioma and serve the only reason for lowering the symptoms. Generally at this stage the cancer is absolutely incurable.

Chemotherapy – This is the most widely used of cancer treatments which involves the usage of drugs to destroy the cancer cells. Unfortunately, nearly all drugs used possess a low success rate with pericardial mesothelioma. Research is becoming carried out to generate a cocktail of drugs that possess a much more favourable end result.

There does exist an additional form of therapy which involves using all three aforementioned therapy choices. It is referred to as Dual Therapy. Surgery is used to get rid of the cancer cells, then chemotherapy and radiation are used to kill the residual cells. The success with this technique is greater than just using radiation, surgical treatment or chemotherapy alone, but can nevertheless be dangerous.