Mesothelioma Signs and Symptoms

The symptoms of mesothelioma, a form of cancer, which often take anywhere up to 50 years to develop the 20th Unfortunately, this delay prevents the detection of the disease and often leads to misdiagnosis. Early symptoms are similar to many other common diseases such as colds and flu, and are easily dismissed. further signs of mesothelioma are respiratory diseases, such as chest pain and breathing difficulties. The three types of mesothelioma everyone has somethingdifferent symptoms.

Pleural mesothelioma, which develops as a result of pleural effusion, a build up of fluid in the pleura of the chest, typically causes symptoms such as the following: difficulty in breathing, difficulty in swallowing, shortness of breath, persistent coughing, weight loss, fever, coughing up blood, rasping, and pain in the chest.

Symptoms of peritoneal mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining in the abdominal cavity, include weight loss, abdominal swelling and pain due to ascites (a buildup of fluid in the abdominal cavity), and may include bowel obstruction, blood clotting abnormalities, anemia, and fever.

Finally, the rarest form of mesothelioma, pericardial mesothelioma, includes mild to severe chest pain, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, a persistent cough, and severe fatigue.

To diagnose whether a patient's symptoms are connected to mesothelioma, as opposed to something less severe, an X-ray or ultrasound may be used. If the results of these methods are inconclusive, a biopsy with certainty whether the cancer is to be determined. There is currently no cure for mesothelioma, but the search and clinical trials are ongoing.