Clinical Scan Anxiety before a Mesothelioma Medical Scan? You’re not Alone.

Clinical Scan Anxiety before a Mesothelioma Medical Scan? You’re not Alone.

ByHolly Zink

Many mesothelioma patients with advanced cancer have anxiety before a clinical scan. Clinicians have even coined this clinical scan anxiety as “scanxiety.” A new study published by Supportive Care in Cancer looked at the experiences of scans and scanxiety in patients with advanced cancer. They were looking for the best strategies to reduce clinical scan anxiety or scanxiety. The research team conducted interviews with 16 patients with advanced cancer. The team asked about anxiety felt during computed tomography (CT) scans for monitoring of their cancer. Anxiety About the Scan Experience and Scan Results For these patients, scans were viewed as a routine and normal part of cancer care. This is one of those “necessary evils” that is part of the…

New Cancer Guidelines to Manage and Treat Mesothelioma
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New Cancer Guidelines to Manage and Treat Mesothelioma

ByHolly Zink

Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops from the thin layer of tissue that covers many of the body’s internal organs. Mesothelioma is a difficult disease to study on a global scale for many reasons. Yet, there has been tremendous progress in mesothelioma research over the last decade. However, current cancer guidelines are fragmented. An editorial in the Annals of Oncology recommends that new guidelines need to focus on both global and gender perspectives. Shifting Timeframes Make it Difficult to Study Mesothelioma Cases of mesothelioma are rising in some countries and falling in others. This makes it difficult to study the disease on a global level. There are a few different reasons for this global variation. First,…

Optimal Mesothelioma Care: Is Reimbursement Structure a Disincentive?
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Optimal Mesothelioma Care: Is Reimbursement Structure a Disincentive?

ByAlex Strauss

Impending changes in the way hospitals are reimbursed for medical treatments may help improve outcomes for some patients with peritoneal mesothelioma. That conclusion comes from a new study in the Annals of Surgical Oncology, which compared the costs with the money a hospital stands to earn from a popular mesothelioma treatment. Mesothelioma is a fast-growing and lethal cancer that occurs most often in people who worked in jobs that exposed them to asbestos. While most cases of mesothelioma occur on the pleura, the lining around the lungs, about a third of cases occur on the peritoneum, which lines the abdomen. Increasingly, the gold standard treatment for people with peritoneal mesothelioma is cytoreductive surgery (CRS) to remove as much of the…