Types of Mesothelioma

Types of Mesothelioma

The types of Mesothelioma are as follows:

Pleural Mesothelioma
Pleural mesothelioma spreads within the chest cavity, sometimes involving the lung. Metastases can occur in any organ, including the brain, and are much more common than previously thought.

The onset of mesothelioma is usually very slow, the most common presenting symptom is persistent pain localized in the chest. Sometimes the pain is accompanied by severe difficulty breathing, due to an accumulation of fluid in the pleural space known as pleural effusion. Cough, weight loss and fever are not uncommon. The most valuable single test to show the extent of the disease is a computed chest tomograph (CT-scan).

There are currently no serum markers available for the diagnosis of mesothelioma. The detection of elevated serum levels of hyaluronic acid may be useful in differentiating mesotheliomas from other tumors, or to follow the effect of treatment.

The median survival is about 17 months from the beginning of symptoms. The 3-year survival is 10% the 5-year survival is approximately 5% ( if 100 patients are diagnosed with mesothelioma at a specific point in time, that means that 10 patients will still be alive at the end of 3 years and 5 patients will only be alive at the end of 5 years).

Peritoneal Mesothelioma
Peritoneal mesothelioma involves the abdominal cavity, infiltrating the liver, spleen or the bowel. As with pleural mesothelioma pain is the most common presenting complaint. In addition, due to fluid accumulation in the abdominal cavity (ascites), the abdomen appears enlarged. The patients experience nausea, vomiting, swelling of their feet, fever and difficulty in moving their bowels.

The prognosis is poorer than for pleural mesothelioma with a median survival time of about 10 months from the onset of symptoms.

Benign Mesothelioma
A rare form of mesothelioma is the cycstic mesothelioma of the peritoneum. Its prognosis is benign. Its occurrence has been described primarily in young women. However the diagnosis presents difficulties, requiring extensive electron miscroscopy and immunohistochemical studies.