Understanding Mesothelioma
The finding of mesothelioma can be a difficult, discouraging and life-altering diagnosis. The patient who is confronted with mesothelioma may discover that their own physician knows very little about the disease and might not know what best to recommend. Mesothelioma is a rare cancer and the majority of the medical establishment are uninformed and defeatist about the disease. This attitude stems from 100 years of having no adequate treatment to address this vicious cancer. Unfortunately, new protocols and techniques take time to gain acceptance. If patients or their family members turn to the internet for information, they will find the above pessimism is almost universally shared by sources on the web. The body of information provided by lawyers, government institutions, cancer support groups, and hospitals tends to be discouraging, shallow, and uninformative. But most of these sources are providing data that is five or more years old and in today's research environment, this is already out of date. As a 4 year survivor likes to point out:
More importantly, what each patient must understand is that statistics cannot be applied wholesale to the individual. As 20 year mesothelioma survivor Dr. Steven J. Gould pointed out in the title of his brilliant essay of hope, "The Median Isn't The Message". (ab) Dr. Gould eventually succumbed to cancer twenty years later but not the mesothelioma that had forecast an 8 month median survival for him. Patients must commit to become their own advocates and to understand the particulars of their specific situations. They must not allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the negative statistics. To do this, patients must learn as much as they can about their cancer, what the best treatment options are, and who can provide those options. Taking responsibility for their own recovery is the best response to a difficult situation and will ensure the greatest chance of finding a treatment path that works for them. Introduction to MesotheliomaMesothelioma is a name that has only recently penetrated the consciousness of the general public. Most people still have not heard of it or only poorly understand the causal relationship with asbestos. Historically, many people suffering from mesothelioma were listed as having contracted "lung cancer" or other carcinomas of various description. This was partly due to the rarity of the tumor and partly to the misconception that a primary tumor of the mesothelium was medically unlikely. We will review this subject in greater detail later, under the history of mesothelioma. Whatever the reason, mesothelioma cases were under-reported in the past, giving the disease an orphan label and weakening momentum for research into a cure. Many young researchers chose to pursue other, more promising, carcinomas rather than this stubborn, intractable, and rare tumor. Thankfully, times are changing in this regard. Despite a large and continuing increase of mesothelioma cases, mesothelioma today remains a relatively obscure illness. Since recognition of the tumor was primarily a late 20th century phenomenon, mesothelioma was associated with modern origins and strongly linked to recent environmental abuse. Although mesothelioma wasn’t identified as a clinical entity until the 1930’s, (a) and the connection to asbestos wasn’t widely accepted until the 1960's, it would be inaccurate to portray it as a new disease. As we shall discover, mankind’s exposure to asbestos, the amazing stone with the deadly legacy, extends thousands of years into the past. Mesothelioma, although never named and probably not correctly identified, undoubtedly affected the workers and consumers of asbestos at that time. It was irrefutable that people became very ill or died when exposed to asbestos even though no one at the time knew why. |
