The Journal of Medical Case Reports recently included an article of one Australian woman’s mesothelioma survival. Considered a fatal cancer, mesothelioma carries an average eighteen-month patient life expectancy following diagnosis. This lady, however, is more than seven years past diagnosis and considered cancer-free.
At age forty she reported to her physician that she was experiencing fatigue, abdominal pain and a bad taste in her mouth. A CT scan showed tumors in her abdomen; she was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma and surgery was preformed. Tumors were removed from her bowel, colon and diaphragm. The affected areas were then administered a chemo-bath: a treatment consisting of warm chemotherapy solution soaking the affected tissues. Responding well to treatment, the Australian patient was considered cancer free.
Peritoneal mesothelioma is the less common of the two mesothelioma types. It is specific to lining of abdominal cavities, while the more common pleural mesothelioma is specific to mesothelioma in the lung lining.
Both types of mesothelioma are considered rare cancers, affecting about three thousand Americans each year and an estimated ninety thousand people worldwide. The medical community refers to this type of illness as an
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