After being diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, your doctor will need to know the exact damage that the cancer has caused and how much it has developed. This will help determine how the lymph nodes and chest wall are affected by mesothelioma, determine which lung is affected and what size the tumors are, if any.
Pleural mesothelioma staging systems
Pleural mesothelioma staging can be achieved correctly only if one of the following staging system is used:
- The Butchart System (one of the oldest and common)
- The TNM System
- The Brigham System
Pleural mesothelioma staging systems use the following factors to determine the stage mesothelioma cancer has reached:
- Lymph node involvement
- Size, number and proximity of tumors
- Location of primary tumor
- Metastasis
- Cell type of cancerous tumors
Pleural mesothelioma staging procedures
After experiencing the first symptoms, pleural mesothelioma patients will go through clinical (including the staging process) helping doctors choose the best treatment methods (radiation therapy, surgery or chemotherapy). Pleural mesothelioma staging needs to be very accurate because it is an important tool when needing to set a mesothelioma prognosis and at the same a diagnosis tool. Doctors base their treatment option chosen for a specific patient on the stage the cancer has reached, and it should be perfectly staged, because treatment methods used for each stage of mesothelioma are completely different, and if used with a different stage than that they were intended for it will have no effect.
Pleural mesothelioma staging is a procedure done easily with the help of any kind of body scans, allowing doctors to measure and study the tumors and cancerous cells as accurate as possible. A number of other procedures of detecting mesothelioma cancer are used to stage it, such as blood tests, biopsies or pathology reports. Most doctors use the Butchart system, because it is an old system and has proved that is the most reliable of them all. The Butchart pleural mesothelioma staging system splits the development of pleural mesothelioma in four distinct stages. Some specialists are developing new staging systems or trying to improve the existing ones, but still agree that the Butchart pleural mesothelioma staging system can be counted on every time.
Pleural mesothelioma staging information
Please, remember to contact asbestosis and mesothelioma centers if any questions about the staging of pleural mesothelioma arise. We will be very glad to answer any of them, and, asking us about mesothelioma is absolutely free.
