TREATING MESOTHELIOMA WITH RADIATION

Treatment Background:

Radiation therapy can also be referred to as radiotherapy or radiation oncology.

It is defined as the medical use of ionizing-radiation as a specific part of cancer treatment that is designed to both actively control and destroy malignant cells.

Radiotherapy is utilized in the treatment, control and destruction of malignant tumors, and may be used as the primary or the secondary form of therapy.

Indeed, it is common to see radiotherapy combined with surgery, chemotherapy and/or hormone therapy.

Regardless of the actual combination of therapies that may be applied to the patient, most cancers do respond positively – and in varying degrees – to radiotherapy.

Radiation therapy works by damaging the DNA of the cancer cells, causing them to either die or reproduce at a slower rate.

Treating Mesothelioma with Radiation:

Although Radiation therapy alone has never been shown to improve survival from Mesothelioma, for those patients who are exhibiting localized Mesothelioma, and who can tolerate a radical surgery, radiation therapy is often provided as a follow-up to surgery, along with chemotherapy, too.

Delivering both radiation and chemotherapy after surgery has, in some patients, resulted in an extended life-expectancy of as much as 5 years.

As part of the curative approach to the treatment of Mesothelioma, radiotherapy is regularly applied to the sites of chest-drain insertion.

The purpose of this action is to try and prevent and restrict the growth of the tumor(s) along the track in the patient’s chest-wall.

While it is the case that Mesothelioma is usually resistant to curative treatment with radiotherapy alone, palliative treatments have been used to offer relief from symptoms that have arisen from tumor-growth, including symptoms that have been caused by obstructions to major blood-vessels.