Evaluating Mesothelioma Symptoms: New Tool Makes it Easier
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Evaluating Mesothelioma Symptoms: New Tool Makes it Easier

Evaluating mesothelioma symptoms is an important step in planning treatment for asbestos cancer. But researchers at a top US cancer center say it is hard to do a thorough job using current tools. That’s why doctors at MD Anderson have developed their own method for evaluating mesothelioma symptoms. They made some mesothelioma-specific additions to an existing cancer symptom evaluation system. Tests on more than 200 mesothelioma patients show the method works well and is easy to use. The developers hope doctors can use it to design better mesothelioma treatment plans. The Importance of Evaluating Mesothelioma Symptoms When a patient receives a mesothelioma diagnosis, the next step is evaluating mesothelioma symptoms. This process can help give the doctor valuable information about…

Best Tools for Measuring Mesothelioma Treatment Response
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Best Tools for Measuring Mesothelioma Treatment Response

When it comes to evaluating treatment response in mesothelioma, functional imaging techniques may do a better job than standard imaging. That is the word from a team of UK researchers who compared different types of imaging techniques in the evaluation of pleural mesothelioma patients for an article in the journal Lung Cancer. Imaging Techniques for Mesothelioma Tumors Functional imaging, which includes techniques like positron emission tomography (PET), dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI, and diffusion-weighted MRI, are designed to tell doctors more than just the size or shape of the mesothelioma tumor. By using certain kinds of injectable tracers, these imaging studies reveal important information about cellular processes like metabolism, which is typically higher in mesothelioma cells than it is in normal cells. “By…