Home Health Center Mesothelioma   Mesothelioma - Diagnosis

Diagnosis of Mesothelioma

 There are a number of questions your doctor will ask in order to reach a proper diagnosis of mesothelioma. These could include questions like:

• When did the symptoms begin?
• How severe and frequent are your symptoms?
• Is there anything you do that improves the symptom? Or worsens them?
• Have you worked with asbestos? For how long did you work with asbestos?
  

In addition to your answers to these questions, your complete medical history along with a comprehensive physical exam, there are other tests for mesothelioma as well. These include:

• Chest x-ray
• CT scans of the chest or abdomen
• MRI scans
• PET scans
• A biopsy is used to check tissue samples for the presence of cancer. Depending on the area of the body affected, different biopsy procedures such as fine needle aspiration, thoracoscopy (to collect tissues from the chest), and laparoscopy (to inspect the abdomen more clearly) need to be carried out.
• Surgical procedures such as thoracotomy (an incision made in or around the chest to examine the organs placed in the rib cage) and laparotomy (an incision into the abdomen) are also used to diagnose mesothelioma.
• Blood tests are used to check for certain substances that are found in higher levels in people with mesothelioma. Blood tests are also used to track the progress of the disease and the efficacy of the treatment prescribed.
• Extracting fluid from the chest (Thoracentesis), the abdomen (Paracentesis) and from around the heart (Pericardiocentesis) and checking the fluid for cancer cells is another test for mesothelioma
• A mediatinoscopy is performed to check the lymph nodes in case the cancer has spread or if it has still remained localized
  

Depending on the results of the tissue sample, your course of treatment will be decided. However, in many cases even with test results of a biopsy or fluid samples, it may still be difficult to pin point a diagnosis of mesothelioma. This is because results can often be confused with other types of cancers as well. Therefore in addition to the biopsy or fluid sample retrieval, special lab tests are performed as well. These include:

• Immunohistochemistry Tests: To determine whether the cancer is in fact mesothelioma or lung cancer.
• DNA Microarray Analysis: This is a relatively new test that check gene patterns cancer mutations.
• Electron Microscopy: Using an electron microscopy can sometimes help diagnose mesothelioma more accurately.
• Pulmonary Function Tests: To determine whether surgery is a treatment option.