Other Mesotheleomia Treatments
You’ve probably already read about surgery and chemotherapy treatment options for your cancer. While these two types of treatment are most popular not just for mesotheleomia patients but also for other kinds of cancer patients, they are not the only choices. When you have such an aggressive form of a disease, it is important to talk about all of your treatment options. Every person reacts differently to treatment, so what might work well for one person might not work at all for another person with the same type of mesotheleomia.
Alternative Treatments
Treatments that are outside the realm of typical Western medicine are often called alternative treatments or alternative therapies. However, the word “alternative” is somewhat loaded. You don’t necessarily have to use these types of treatments instead of surgery or chemotherapy (or any of the other treatment options on this page for that matter). You can instead use them together with other treatments for a more holistic approach to medicine.
There are a number of alternative treatments you can consider. Your first step should typically be to talk to a holistic doctor who can give you an overview of your options, which include acupuncture, massage, cupping, aromatherapy, and more. Religious treatments, like praying and meditation, also fall into the alternative treatment category. Once you’ve learned about all of your options, you can find a professional specializing in that specific kind of treatment.
Radiation
Although radiation can be very dangerous, it can also be very effective. Many people use radiation in place of chemotherapy, especially if they have bad reactions to the chemotherapy drugs, which are infamous for making people sick. However, it is important to keep in mind that radiation can be used together with chemotherapy, as well as with surgery. This doesn’t have to be a stand-alone treatment.
There are two forms of radiation currently being used to treat the mesotheleomia tumors. First, the older and more traditional form of radiation treatment uses beams of radioactive waves to attack the cancer cells. However, a new procedure might be even more effective, but with less risk to the surrounding cells. With Brachytherapy radiation, small radioactive rods are inserted into the tumor to kill the cancer kills. This is a more concentrated does of radiation to the body.
Photodynamic Therapy
Researchers have learned that in most kinds of cancer, healthy cells and cancerous cells react differently to photosensitizing drugs. With this type of therapy, patients are injected with a drug that is quickly absorbed into cancer cells, but only very slowly absorbed into healthy cells. Patients are then exposed to specific light waves for up to an hour, and the cancer cells react to the light and die over the next few days. In general, this treatment only works for mesotheleomia that has not yet spread all over the body. Photodynamic therapy, however, has few side effects, so even if it doesn’t work, it is worth trying. In some patients, that light might cause increased skin sensitivity, burns, or swelling, and depending on the treatment location, some patients have reported trouble breathing or swallowing.
Gene Therapy
One of the most exciting new treatments for mesotheleomia and other types of cancer is gene therapy. Right now, this treatment is only available in clinical trials, so doctors can’t give you success rates or guarantees that you will not have long-term side effects. However, it can be quite effective in killing cancerous cells.
Genes are part of your DNA. The cancer in your body is the result of “bad” or “defective” genes. By modifying a virus, doctors will attempt to replace the defective (cancerous) genes. In many kinds of gene therapy, doctors attempt to replace the cancer genes with healthy genes, but a new branch of gene therapy called “suicide gene therapy” is showing to be much more effective for mesotheleomia patients. With this kind of gene therapy, the virus that infects the cancerous cells carries a gene that makes these cells kill themselves by producing a toxin. In one recent clinical trial involving 34 mesotheleomia patents, four experienced significant tumor regression and two were completely in remission after seven years of treatment. There are potential complications to gene therapy, and to use it, you have to be approved for a clinical trial, but for some patients, this is the best course of action.
