There are three common mesothelioma treatment options available:
• Surgery
• Chemotherapy
• Radiation therapy
Often, these are used in conjunction with one another.
Surgery is used to remove the cancerous tissues. There are many different types of surgery, depending on the extent and stage of your mesothelioma. If only your lining is affected, you may have a pleurectomy, which involves the removal of the pleura. If the cancer has spread to the lung, a thoracotomy may be performed to remove part of the lung, or a pneumonectomy to remove the entire lung.
Chemotherapy is the use of selected drugs to try to kill the tumor. Although these drugs select for the cancerous cells, they are not harmless to your healthy cells, either. This makes chemotherapy very difficult for many people, with numerous side effects, some of them even fatal.
Radiation therapy is also used to target mesothelioma since the cancerous cells are more vulnerable to radiation than healthy cells. Radiation therapy can ease some symptoms and is less harsh on the body than chemotherapy, but alone it does not result in prolonged survival.
All three treatment options tend to be expensive, but you may be able to help pay for these treatments with a mesothelioma lawsuit. Top learn more about your compensation and treatment options, please contact the lawyers of The Law Office of Brown | Kiely, LLP for a free consultation.