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Mesothelioma takes a long time to incubate within a human body before symptoms
of mesothelioma may appear and cause suffering to the carrier. It can take
fifteen to twenty years for this deadly disease to fully present itself and the
damage it has done. This presents a very difficult challenge for doctors and the
medical community in diagnosing mesothelioma and in many cases patients with
this disease are either not aware that they have it or do not ask the doctor to
specifically check for symptoms of mesothelioma.
If a patient notes a history of asbestos exposure or contamination a doctor
will immediately start looking for signs of the disease, most notably within the
tissues and lining surrounding the lungs, heart and stomach areas. They will
likely also begin with a full physical examination to determine the possible
causes of patient discomfort. This will usually involve some lung and chest
x-rays if the patient is reporting difficulty in breathing which is often a
common ailment of mesothelioma suffers.
The physician will also order a number of pulmonary procedures to test the area
around the lungs in particular since three quarters of all mesothelioma cases
occur in the lining and tissue around the lungs. Follow up CAT scans and MRI
tests may also be ordered if the preliminary tests show the probability of
mesothelioma and these tests should be able to confirm or deny the presence of
mesothelioma. They can also aid the medical personnel in being to determine the
exact size and location of any tumors that may have developed as a result of the
progress of the mesothelioma.
The next steps that a doctor may take are to request a biopsy of the affected
area. This is a procedure to remove a piece of tissue from the area where
mesothelioma is suspected and once that biopsy has been performed then the
tissue sample can be tested further to determine the type of mesothelioma tumor
that is present in the patient. Tissues that come back as benign usually mean
that the tumor is not cancerous and while it may not be comfortable for the
patient, benign tumors are rarely fatal. Malignant mesothelioma tumors however
are cancerous and pose a great threat to the health and life of the patient.
1. Physical Examination
As with all diseases, a
doctor begins the mesothelioma
diagnosis by doing a complete physical exam
and reviewing your medical history. Because mesothelioma is almost always caused by breathing in asbestos
exposure (see Causes of
Mesothelioma), you should tell your doctor about your exposure to asbestos
if you suspect you may have mesothelioma.
After performing the physical exam, a doctor should have x-rays of the chest performed and, in some cases, pulmonary function tests to determine if the symptoms
are consistent with malignant mesothelioma.
2. CT Scans and MRI's to Diagnose Mesothelioma
In many cases, a
doctor may order CT scans and/or MRI's to aid in the mesothelioma diagnosis.
These tools allow a doctor to assess the
size, location, and extent of the mesothelioma tumor in the chest or
abdomen.
3. Biopsy to Diagnose Mesothelioma
All of
the steps described above are only preliminary indications of mesothelioma. If,
after performing these tests, a doctor suspects mesothelioma, a biopsy should be
taken to confirm the mesothelioma diagnoses.
- A biopsy is the procedure used for obtaining a tissue sample of
the tumor. The two most common methods for removing
tissue samples are a thorascoscopy and a broncoscopy.
- A thoracoscopy is obtained by inserting a telescope-like
instrument connected to a video camera (thoracoscope) through a small incision in the chest.
The doctor then removes the tumor using special forceps with the aid of the camera. This procedure is
used for diagnosing both pleural mesothelioma and pericardial mesothelioma.
- A bronchoscopy involves inserting
a flexible lighted tube through the mouth into the bronchi to remove tissue in the airway.
This procedure is used for diagnosing pleural mesothelioma.
Although a biopsy is the most effective procedure for
diagnosing mesothelioma, malignant mesothelioma cells can look like other types
of cancer. Therefore, special laboratory tests are sometimes performed or
electron microscopes are used to
confirm a diagnosis of mesothelioma.
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