What is pleural mesothelioma

There are always various diseases plaguing people's bodies in life, and people's immunity decreases with age. This makes them more susceptible to illness, including pleural mesothelioma, which is more common in middle-aged people. At the beginning, many patients did not know much about this disease. They knew very little about the symptoms and causes, and it was also very difficult to treat. So let’s take a look at what pleural mesothelioma is like.

1. Symptoms

(1) There are no specific symptoms in the early stage. 60% to 90% of patients experience dyspnea, chest pain, dry cough and shortness of breath. About 10.2% of patients may have fever and general discomfort. 3.2% of patients have joint pain as the main symptom. Patients often have a cough, which is mostly dry, with no sputum or very little sputum, and no blood in the sputum. Patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma have obvious symptoms of shortness of breath, especially after activities, the chest tightness and shortness of breath are significantly aggravated, and the symptoms are relieved after rest. Dyspnea is secondary to pleural effusion and increases in severity as the pleural effusion and tumor increase in size. In the early stage, the effusion is free in the pleural cavity, then gradually becomes localized and encapsulated, and finally gradually replaced by large tumor tissue. Chest pain is initially vague and dull, but becomes localized as the tumor invades the intercostal nerves.

(2) In the middle and late stages, 50% to 60% of patients present with large amounts of pleural effusion, of which three quarters are bloody. Tumor tissue can wrap and compress the affected lung tissue, limiting the lung's expansion. If malignant pleural mesothelioma is not treated, patients will lose weight accompanied by severe shortness of breath, progressive failure, and finally die of suffocation due to extreme breathing difficulties. The chest pain in patients without a large amount of pleural effusion is more severe, gradually worsening to the point where the patient can no longer bear it, and is difficult to relieve with general analgesics. Pain often occurs locally in the lesion, and can radiate to the upper abdomen and shoulders when the diaphragm is affected. If the medical history and physical examination are not conducted in detail, the patient may be misdiagnosed as coronary heart disease, frozen shoulder or cholecystitis. Some patients experience periodic hypoglycemia and hypertrophic pulmonary osteoarthropathy, but these signs are more common in benign mesothelioma.

(3) Late-stage patients present with weakness, cachexia, ascites, and chest and abdominal deformities. The clinical manifestations are the result of progressive tumor invasion without effective control. Some patients may find a chest wall mass in the late stages of the disease. This is caused by mesothelioma growing out of the chest cavity, or it may be caused by needle tract implantation after thoracocentesis.

2. Physical signs

Physical examination usually shows no positive signs in the early stages of the disease, but later on, obvious pleural effusion, dullness to chest percussion, decreased breath sounds, and mediastinum shifted toward the healthy side may be found. In the late stage of the disease, pleural mesothelioma grows very large and fills the entire pleural cavity, but the pleural effusion becomes less, the lung capacity decreases, the chest wall on the affected side collapses, the intercostal space narrows, and the mediastinum is pulled toward the affected side. In some cases, abdominal distension may also occur, which may indicate that the tumor has invaded the abdominal cavity through the diaphragm. Once transdiaphragmatic invasion occurs, intestinal obstruction may occur in 30% of patients.

In addition to chest signs, patients may have tumor-associated syndrome, which, although less common, can also occur in mesothelioma patients, such as: pulmonary osteoarthropathy, clubbing of fingers (toes), syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone (SIADH), autoimmune hemolytic anemia, hypercoagulable state, hypercalcemia, hypoglycemia and systemic lymph node metastasis.

We have also learned about what pleural mesothelioma is in the above article. No matter what the disease is, you need to have a detailed understanding of it so that you can find a method suitable for you according to your condition to achieve the best treatment effect. Therefore, I hope that some patients who don’t know much about pleural mesothelioma will read the above content carefully to better quality their health.