Mesothelioma Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is a mode of treating cancer rather in other words it is an anti cancer drug that is used to destroy cancerous cells in the body. These drugs are known to slow down the growth of these rapid cancerous cells and also eradicate them.
Mesothelioma a type of cancer which is a rare occurrence affects the thin mesothelium membrane covering the walls of the stomach, heart and the lungs. This type of cancer is known to affect people who are subjected to regular exposure to asbestos. Not only this people working in asbestos mines and even people residing close to the asbestos mines including construction workers, breaking industry, persons who are associated with the shipping work, mechanics etc as well are at a high risk of developing this deadly kind of cancer.
Chemotherapy has been used successfully to check the growth of these cancerous cells and also help reduce the symptoms associated with this disease thus giving a quality life to these patients. Chemotherapy has helped increase the life span of some of the people suffering from mesothelioma but then it is not a permanent cure. Here a combination of drugs is used as a mode of treatment.
The mode of administering the drugs varies invariably as they can be injected intravenously or can be swallowed as they come in pill form too. Chemotherapy method used here is systemic therapy wherein the drug reaches the entire body through the blood stream thus destroying all the cancer cells in the body.
The main thing that needs to be understood while treating mesothelioma patients is that the drug should be administered directly into the cavities of the chest or the abdomen. Depending upon the stage of cancer patients can be subjected to primary as well as adjuvant mode of treatment.
The main drugs used for treating mesothelioma are cisplatin, mitomycin C, pemetrexed or alimta, carboplatin, navelbine or vinorelbine, vinblasstine or velbe, gemcitabine or gemzar etc. The combination of alimta along with cisplatin is largely preferred.
There are other combination drugs that are used to treat mesothelioma like cisplatin and gemcitabine are also known to be helpful while there are other optional drugs like carboplatin and cisplatin, cisplatin and doxorubicin, vinblastine with mitomycin along with cisplatin andmethotrexate with vincristine. The most important thing is that these drugs can be administered as single drug chemotherapy when the patient is unable to sustain to two or more combination drugs.
As you known that chemotherapy is used to destroy or rather eradicate the cancerous cells in our body but then they cause damage to those normal cells that surround these cancerous cells and are known to have some side effects like memory loss, vomiting, mouth sores, nausea, hair loss, loss of appetite etc. Chemotherapy is also known to cause damage to the blood cells as it is known to bring down the blood count thus lowering the capacity of the immune system to fight against diseases. You need to know all the details regarding chemotherapy as well as the side effects before deciding to undergo this mode of treatment.