Among recently approved medications, Alimta stands out as having the most promise in prolonging the life of mesothelioma patients, as well as improving their quality of life.

Alimta, also known as Pemetrexed is a newer chemotherapy medication that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2005. Most times it used in combination with Cisplatin ,and Alimta is the first medication that is specifically approved for the treatment of mesothelioma and is considered to be the most effective chemotherapy treatment for pleural mesothelioma patients especially those that have advanced cancer that are not candidates for surgery.

Alimta is a multi-targeted anti-folate medication that works by blocking the enzymes required for DNA replication and cell division. During clinical trials, Alimta (used in tandem with Cisplatin) added an average of three months to the lives of malignant mesothelioma patients and also helped to reduce symptoms.

As with most cancer medications, it is imperative for patients to discuss the use of Alimta and Cisplatin with their doctor before beginning cancer treatment. An oncologist will provide facts about the effectiveness of Alimta, the administration of the medication, and the side effects patients encounter.

Cancer specialists doctors usually recommend the complimentary use of B12 supplements given intramuscularly{injection}and folic acid supplements given orally on a daily dosage (supplementation will continue for 21 days after the last dosage cycle of Alimta).

Patients are also placed on adjuvant oral steroids to help minimize side effects. Patients should inform their doctor of all other medications being taken to avoid dangerous interactions.

Alimta is given to mesothelioma patients every 21 days on an outpatient basis. Treatment consists of a 10-minute IV infusion, followed by two hours of Cisplatin. The number of cycles patients are required to receive will depend on their response to the medications and intensity of resulting side effects.

Side Effects

The side effects of Alimta are usually mild to moderate for most patients with pleural mesothelioma. Some patients may experience extreme side effects and a doctor should be informed immediately if a reaction becomes a serious problem. Side effects typically include:

?Nausea

?Vomiting

?Fatigue

?Constipation

?Diarrhea

?Loss of appetite

?Weight loss

?Tiredness

?Weakness

?Pale skin

?Headache

?Dizziness

?Confusion

?Fast heartbeat

?Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep

?Changes in mood

?Depression

?Joint or muscle pain

?Low red blood cells count(anemia)

?Low white blood cells count(neutropenia)

?Low platelets count(thrombocytopenia)

Patients experiencing any of the following symptoms should immediately call their doctor:

?Diarrhea

?Sores in the mouth, throat, or on the lips

?Unusual bleeding or bruising

?Sore throat, fever, chills, cough, or other signs of infection

?Chest pain

?Difficulty breathing or swallowing

?Slow or difficult speech

?Weakness or numbness of an arm or leg

?Pain, burning, numbness, or tingling in the hands or feet

?Hives

?Rash

?Itching

?Decreased urination

Mesothelioma patients should avoid being near people who have colds, the flu, or other signs of illness because during chemotherapy the immune system is weakened by the chemo drugs thus making the patient very prone to “catching” infections.

Make sure to contact your doctor at once if you develop signs of an infection. Before you receive Alimta, tell your doctor if you are taking an NASAID, such as ibuprofen, naproxen, indometacin, ketoprofen, and others, these drugs tend to interact negatively with Alimta. Also before receiving Alimta, tell your doctor if you have kidney disease,liver disease,immune deficiency or the presence of excessive fluid in your lungs or in any organ in your body.
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What are the Symptoms?
Symptoms of peritoneal mesothelioma are swelling and pain in the abdomen, diarrhea or constipation, unexplained weight loss, nausea and vomiting, and the appearance of lumps under the skin in the abdominal area.

How is It Treated?
Since this type of cancer is usually diagnosed very late in its development, a positive mesothelioma prognosis is not likely, and treatment options are limited. Chemotherapy and radiation are typically used to threat the cancer, along with medication to provide pain relief. For many patients, surgery is not an option because at the point of discovery, the cancer has already spread too far and the patient’s poor health may make him or her too weak to recover from the trauma of surgery.

How Does Exposure to Asbestos Cause Peritoneal Mesothelioma?
It is believed that there are two ways that asbestos can get into your system.

1. They can be ingested and then and consequently move through the digestive system into the peritoneal lining.

2. Asbestos fibers can be inhaled and travel to the peritoneal lining through the fluids in the lymphatic system.

Once these fibers get into the system, they become trapped and the body has no way to drive them out.

How Does Someone Get Exposed to Asbestos?
There is no test or conclusive way to find out if you have been exposed to asbestos. The only thing you can do is to review your life’s history and current living conditions to know if you’ve ever been at risk for exposure to asbestos. Here are a few of the risk factors.

• Living in an area where asbestos occurs naturally is one factor. Small particles of asbestos can get airborne, making it easy for you to inhale them. You can contact the health department where you live to find out if asbestos is in the local environment.
• There used to be many industries that used asbestos regularly. If you ever worked in such a facility, you could have been exposed to it. It is also possible that you may have carried the asbestos fibers home to your family.
• Before 1978, a lot of electrical wiring was insulated with asbestos. Asbestos was also woven into clothes and gloves that were worn by those regularly exposed to heat and fire.
• Buildings and homes built before 1978 were frequently constructed using material with asbestos in them. Since asbestos is a good insulator, it was often used in floor and ceiling tiles, along with shingles and roofing paper. If any of these things were ever damaged, asbestos fibers could have become airborne.

Asbestos.Net is focused on bringing an easy to use and extremely informative website to those searching for information on asbestos cancer and mesothelioma. With informative videos and accurate, oncologist reviewed articles, we trust you will find this to be a true resource. Please visit www.asbestos.net for more information

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However, asbestos can cause damage, contaminants. This tends to go into small portions and stay aloft longer. For those who come into contact, a serious illness to challenge for lung cancer or lung cancer, mesothelioma.

What types of Mesothelioma?
Name of Mesothelioma, asbestos related cancer, acquires its name from the mesothelium cells that are responsible for protecting and enabling easy movement of our vital organs such as lungs, heart and the abdomen in the body. Mesothelioma is generally of three types, pleural mesothelioma, peritoneal mesothelioma and pericardial mesothelioma.

If a person is suffering from hoarseness, difficulty in breathing, loss in weight, coughing, blood in sputum, chest pain, weak muscles, reduced tactile sensitivity, he may be suffering from Pleural mesothelioma or the cancer of lining of the lungs. This is the most common type of mesothelioma and almost two-thirds of the mesothelioma patients suffer from pleural mesothelioma. The Peritoneal mesothelioma or cancer of the lining of the abdomen causes impaired bowel motion, bloating, swelling in feet, and nausea. This is less common among mesothelioma patients and it affects one-third of the mesothelioma patients. Pericardial mesothelioma is of the cancer of lining of the heart. It is also caused because of asbestos exposure. However, its prevalence is rare. Pericardial mesothelioma manifests in the form of chest pain, palpitations and cough.

Lawsuits related to Mesothelioma:
The dangerous consequences of long term contact with asbestos and its linkage to mesothelioma cancers has led to several lawsuits against its manufacturers. The manufactures were claimed by the attorneys that they were aware of the capable of causing harm affects of asbestos exposure and yet persisted with its use for profit motives. This is the reason why juries have ordered stringent awards in many mesothelioma and asbestos related lawsuits.

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Most often begins mesothelioma of the pleura or peritoneum. Pleura surrounding the lungs and chest cover. Peritoneum closed some organs in the abdominal cavity. Other mesothelium tissue is also vulnerable to mesothelioma. These include the pericardium that surrounds and protects the heart, testic tunica vaginalis that surrounds the internal reproductive organs of men, and that uterine serous membrane that covers the internal reproductive organs in women.

Who is at greatest risk to develop mesothelioma?
Mesothelioma has a very specific cause – exposure to asbestos. During the first half of the previous century, right up until the mid 1970s asbestos was an important material used to insulate buildings, machines, heavy equipment, and a broad range of commercial applications. Because it was plentiful and inexpensive to mine, asbestos was used in many building products such as home insulation, floor, ceiling and roof tiles. It was also used in commonly found commercial products such as brake linings and pipe insulation.

This meant that millions of people were coming in contact with asbestos on a daily basis. And since the effects of exposure to asbestos fibre often do not become apparent for 30 or 40 years after prolonged exposure, companies and health officials were slow to recognize the dangers of asbestos. As a result, shipyard workers, men and women working in asbestos mines and mills, workers producing asbestos products, workers in the heating and construction industries, and virtually all other tradespeople were exposed to asbestos fibres for extended periods of time.

Today it is understood that anyone working with or near asbestos has an increased risk of developing mesothelioma, so there are strictly controlled limits of exposure in the work place. But since the dormancy period of mesothelioma can often be 30 or 40 years, there are millions of workers who are at risk because of their exposure in the decades before the safety controls were put in place.

What are the symptoms of mesothelioma?
Pleural mesothelioma – cancer of the pleura or lung lining – causes shortness of breath or chronic coughing. Other symptoms of pleural mesothelioma may include chest pain, chronic coughing, shortness of breath, fatigue, wheezing, hoarseness, weight loss, or blood in the phlegm from the lungs when coughing.

Peritoneal mesothelioma affects the lining around the stomach and intestines and is usually just as dangerous. Symptoms of peritoneal mesothelioma include pain or swelling in the abdomen, weight loss, bowel obstruction, anemia, and fever.

Many of the symptoms of mesothelioma can easily be mistaken for allergies or a common cold. Mesothelioma is often discovered when patients think they have one of these other common illnesses.

How Serious is Mesothelioma?
By the time most infected people become aware they have mesothelioma, it is no longer dormant and becomes extremely aggressive. In its active phase, mesothelioma can travel quickly, and is almost impossible to stop. There are treatments used to keep the patient comfortable, but there is currently no cure for mesothelioma. As many as 75% of those who develop the disease will lose their life within one year. The remainder may last for up to an additional six months.

This makes it extremely important to detect the disease before it enters its active phase.

How is mesothelioma diagnosed?
Mesothelioma is often not diagnosed until it reaches an advanced stage. This is because of its long dormancy period, and because once it becomes active the initial symptoms are similar to much more comman and less dangerous sicknesses such as colds or the flu. If a patient has a history of exposure to asbestos, then a complete physical examination is advised. This would normally include x-rays of the chest or abdomen and lung function tests. It might also include a CT (or CAT) scan or an MRI. Both of these tests give detailed pictures of areas inside the body.

If these tests indicate the probability of mesothelioma, then it is necessary to perform a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. Doing a biopsy involves an oncology specialist taking a small sample of affected tissue and examining it under a microscope for signs of malignancy. Depending on the location of the affected tissue, doing a biopsy can be a relatively traightforward procedure. It normally involves the insertion of a small instrument into the suspect cavity. These surgical devices have both viewing and sample taking capabilities. So the oncologist or surgeon can look at the cavity from the inside, and then take tissue samples from different areas.

If mesothelioma is discovered, the initial tests are followed up with what is called “staging”. This involves more tests to determine how far the disease has spread.

How is mesothelioma treated?
Standard treatments include the normal options available to cancer patients: surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. Sometimes, these treatments are combined. If the mesothelioma is discovered at an early enough stage these treatments can sometimes be effective.

Among the treatments that are used in order to reduce the effects of the disease are oxygen, postural drainage and pain killers. Many alternative treatment methods are also being tested, including attempts to strengthen the body’s immune system. Gene therapy is also being tested in an attempt to attack the problem at the DNA level. Other treatments being tried and tested include homeopathy, herbs and acupuncture. Unfortunately none of these have been found to be very effective once the disease reaches its aggressive stage.

As with all cancers, early detection is the best defense against mesothelioma. Anyone who has been exposed to asbestos should be alert for symptoms and contact a doctor immediately. Detecting mesothelioma at the earliest stage possible greatly increases the chances of beating the disease.

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Mesothelium derives from the mesoderm membrane covering the body cavity of the embryo which further develops into a layer of cells surrounding and protecting most of the internal organs. Mesothelium can be of two types: visceral mesothelium closely surrounds the organ, and parietal mesothelium is the “sac” lining the cavity.

The proteins and serosal fluid that are released between the two layers of Mesothelium make a lubricating liquid providing a slippery protective surface to facilitate movement of organs, such as the heart throbbing, the lungs breathing and the intestinal peristalsis. The lubrication allows organs to glide easily inside the cavity.

Mesothelioma is a cancerous disease which causes abnormal growth and division of the mesothelium cells. They can invade and damage the adjusting tissues and organs and the cancer cells can also spread from their original location to other parts of the body. Mesothelioma mostly starts in the peritoneal cavity. More than 90% of mesothelioma cases are connected with asbestos exposure. Smoking combined with asbestos exposure significantly increases a person’s risk of developing mesothelioma.

In the 20th century many people have been exposed to asbestos not even knowing it. Asbestos is a fibrous silicate mineral notable for its chemical- and heat-resistance and electricity non-conducting. Asbestos was widely used in industry and everyday life until 1980 when the EU and many other developed countries have banned it. When swallowed or inhaled asbestos can stay in the human body producing toxic effect which may result in a number of serious diseases, such as asbestosis, Mesothelioma (Mesothelium cancer), lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, colorectal cancer, and other illnesses.

Mesothelioma (also known as “asbestos cancer”) is a most common asbestos-related type of cancer. The Mesothelium is a cellular membrane lining certain cavities of the human body. Mesothelioma may develop in lung, abdominal, scrotal, and heart sac cavities, the four types of M. being called Pleural, Peritoneal, Testicular, and Pericardial. In 70 percent of cases Mesothelioma is pleural in origin.

Up to 3000 cases of malignant Mesothelioma are registered in the United States every year. Mesothelioma is often diagnosed at its later stage because its symptoms usually appear 20 to 50 years after the initial asbestos exposure. Another reason of untimely diagnosis is that the symptoms of Mesothelioma (i.e. chest pain, continual coughing, short breath, fatigue or fever etc) resemble less severe and quite common conditions, such as influenza.

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