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How Is Mesothelioma Diagnosed | New York City Personal Injury

Joseph Williams | 552 Views | 07/18/2016

Mesothelioma Diagnosis

How is mesothelioma diagnosed? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City and I can tell you that there’s generally two ways that physicians – doctors – diagnose mesothelioma.

Clinical Diagnosis

The first way of diagnosing mesothelioma is a clinical diagnosis. That means that a doctor is evaluating a patient’s presenting symptoms to draw a picture as to what this patient could be suffering from. So the things that are evaluated are things like shortness of breath. Often with mesothelioma victims fluid builds up – it’s called a pleural effusion – but it’s basically just a build up of fluid between the bony rib cage and the lungs and when the fluid builds up it pushes on both the ribs and the lungs. The ribs don’t move, they’re made of bone, so it pushes in and impacts the lungs, makes it harder for the patient to breathe. Shortness of breath is a known symptom of mesothelioma. General fatigue and weakness, weight loss – substantial weight loss, unexplained, in a short period of time – is another factor, another symptom that physicians will use to clinically diagnose or be suspicious of mesothelioma.

Definitive Diagnosis

For mesothelioma victims, the definitive diagnosis comes in the form of a biopsy, and for pleural mesothelioma it’s a biopsy of the pleura. The pleura is the lining on the outside of the lung sometimes referred to as a saran wrap like substance that lines the exterior – the outside – of the lung and doctors will take a biopsy of that surface to determine if a patient has mesothelioma. And how is that biopsy taken? Well, it’s usually taken through a surgical technique and I’d say the most common one would be a video-assisted thoracostomy sometimes known as a vat, V-A-T, a video-assisted thoracostomy. The doctors go in with several instruments, one of which has a camera on it, and the surgeon – the doctor – can visualize the area in the chest where the mesothelioma could be, and with other instruments – and again this is a minimally invasive technique – the physicians can take a biopsy, a piece of flesh.

That biopsy material is then taken and sent to a pathology lab within the hospital. And the pathologist, they’re a specialized doctor who deals with diagnosing disease from looking at a slide. The flesh is put onto a slide and for mesothelioma victims the slides are often stained in certain ways so that different cell types can be visualized when the pathologist looks under a microscope at the slide. That pathologist then writes out a report – it’s called a pathology report – and the pathology report is a very important piece of paper that becomes part of that patient’s medical case because it definitively diagnoses their disease, and it becomes a very important part of their legal case because it definitively diagnoses them as having been a victim of pleural mesothelioma.

I’m sure you have many other questions about how mesothelioma is diagnosed. I’m Joe Williams, and at our firm we handle cases every day for mesothelioma victims. This is what we do every day and we can answer your questions. I encourage you to call our office at the number below and we’d be happy to answer your questions. Thank you.

How Is Mesothelioma Diagnosed | New York City Personal Injury

Mesothelioma Diagnosis

How is mesothelioma diagnosed? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City and I can tell you that there’s generally two ways that physicians – doctors – diagnose mesothelioma.

Clinical Diagnosis

The first way of diagnosing mesothelioma is a clinical diagnosis. That means that a doctor is evaluating a patient’s presenting symptoms to draw a picture as to what this patient could be suffering from. So the things that are evaluated are things like shortness of breath. Often with mesothelioma victims fluid builds up – it’s called a pleural effusion – but it’s basically just a build up of fluid between the bony rib cage and the lungs and when the fluid builds up it pushes on both the ribs and the lungs. The ribs don’t move, they’re made of bone, so it pushes in and impacts the lungs, makes it harder for the patient to breathe. Shortness of breath is a known symptom of mesothelioma. General fatigue and weakness, weight loss – substantial weight loss, unexplained, in a short period of time – is another factor, another symptom that physicians will use to clinically diagnose or be suspicious of mesothelioma.

Definitive Diagnosis

For mesothelioma victims, the definitive diagnosis comes in the form of a biopsy, and for pleural mesothelioma it’s a biopsy of the pleura. The pleura is the lining on the outside of the lung sometimes referred to as a saran wrap like substance that lines the exterior – the outside – of the lung and doctors will take a biopsy of that surface to determine if a patient has mesothelioma. And how is that biopsy taken? Well, it’s usually taken through a surgical technique and I’d say the most common one would be a video-assisted thoracostomy sometimes known as a vat, V-A-T, a video-assisted thoracostomy. The doctors go in with several instruments, one of which has a camera on it, and the surgeon – the doctor – can visualize the area in the chest where the mesothelioma could be, and with other instruments – and again this is a minimally invasive technique – the physicians can take a biopsy, a piece of flesh.

That biopsy material is then taken and sent to a pathology lab within the hospital. And the pathologist, they’re a specialized doctor who deals with diagnosing disease from looking at a slide. The flesh is put onto a slide and for mesothelioma victims the slides are often stained in certain ways so that different cell types can be visualized when the pathologist looks under a microscope at the slide. That pathologist then writes out a report – it’s called a pathology report – and the pathology report is a very important piece of paper that becomes part of that patient’s medical case because it definitively diagnoses their disease, and it becomes a very important part of their legal case because it definitively diagnoses them as having been a victim of pleural mesothelioma.

I’m sure you have many other questions about how mesothelioma is diagnosed. I’m Joe Williams, and at our firm we handle cases every day for mesothelioma victims. This is what we do every day and we can answer your questions. I encourage you to call our office at the number below and we’d be happy to answer your questions. Thank you.