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Specialists Treating Mesothelioma | New York City Personal Injury

Joseph Williams | 556 Views | 07/20/2016

 Steps Specialists Take While Treating Mesothelioma

If you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma. So what types of doctors treat patients with mesothelioma? Hi, I’m Joe Williams I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney. I want to talk to you about some of the doctors that see mesothelioma victims. Initially, when a mesothelioma patient first presents with the signs or the symptoms of mesothelioma they see their family doctor, their intrest, their primary care doctor. That’s when a patient is talking about general weakness, malaise, maybe they’ve lost weight, maybe they’ve lost a lot of weight, they have shortness of breath. They walked up two flights of stairs and boy they’re huffing and puffing. They normally walk down the block a couple of blocks to get the newspaper every morning but now that’s a little but more difficult than usual. They go in to see their primary care doctor and explain. The doctor says let’s take an X-ray, let’s do some test. Let me send you on to a specialist. Now, usually after the primary care doctor the next doctor that a mesothelioma patient will see is a lung doctor, a pulmonologist. The pulmonologist is a specialist who deals with issues related to the lungs. So the pulmonologist is a doctor who’s probably seen mesothelioma patients before and can understand those signs and symptoms with a little bit more detail and can order some different tests. Things like a PET scan or perhaps based on the presentation of the tumor in the chest from PET scans or CAT scans or even from X-Rays the pulmonologist will refer the patient on to a surgeon. This surgeon is tasked with the job of finding out definitively what this is that is in this patient’s chest. They do that usually through a biopsy, a tissue biopsy that’s either done through a needle biopsy or through a surgical biopsy intraoperatively, often done with either a minimally invasive procedure called a video assisted thoracoscopy sometimes referred to as a VATS. Or if there’s difficulty locating the tumor there’s another procedure which is a more open procedure and that procedure is called a thoracotomy. But either way the area where the tumor is visualized is biopsied by the surgeon and that tissue is sent to a pathology lab to get a definitive diagnosis of what it is that’s growing in this patient’s chest. Now, once a diagnosis is made pathologically by a pathologist looking through a microscope at a slide at the cells and determining based upon different standing that can be done. That this is in fact malignant mesothelioma that it’s in this patient’s chest. Once that’s decided and determined then the decisions are, “What are we going to do for this patient?” There’s surgical options and that’s where the surgeon continues to play a role. There’s chemotherapy and radiation options. Now, chemotherapy is administered by an oncologist. So that surgeon would refer the patient to a caner specialist. An oncologist who would then consult with and evaluate the patient and their medical records and all their signs and symptoms and make decisions as to what type of drugs, pharmaceutical drugs, chemotherapy drugs can be administered to this patient to reduce the size of the tumor. Or perhaps to debulk it or reduce the size of the tumor in anticipation of a future surgery. Or if the tumor is advanced to just control or reduce the size of the tumor for palliative care, to reduce the symptoms or the pain response that a patient’s having. All of these doctors work together and coordinate with each other to assist a mesothelioma patient as they go through a diagnosis of mesothelioma. Now why am I telling you call this? I’m telling you because you have questions about mesothelioma. I’m Joe Williams, I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney and we deal with issues related to mesothelioma each and everyday. We represent patients and their families as they struggle through a diagnosis of mesothelioma. If you have questions I invite you to call our office and we’ll answer your questions. Thank you.

Specialists Treating Mesothelioma | New York City Personal Injury

 Steps Specialists Take While Treating Mesothelioma

If you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma. So what types of doctors treat patients with mesothelioma? Hi, I’m Joe Williams I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney. I want to talk to you about some of the doctors that see mesothelioma victims. Initially, when a mesothelioma patient first presents with the signs or the symptoms of mesothelioma they see their family doctor, their intrest, their primary care doctor. That’s when a patient is talking about general weakness, malaise, maybe they’ve lost weight, maybe they’ve lost a lot of weight, they have shortness of breath. They walked up two flights of stairs and boy they’re huffing and puffing. They normally walk down the block a couple of blocks to get the newspaper every morning but now that’s a little but more difficult than usual. They go in to see their primary care doctor and explain. The doctor says let’s take an X-ray, let’s do some test. Let me send you on to a specialist. Now, usually after the primary care doctor the next doctor that a mesothelioma patient will see is a lung doctor, a pulmonologist. The pulmonologist is a specialist who deals with issues related to the lungs. So the pulmonologist is a doctor who’s probably seen mesothelioma patients before and can understand those signs and symptoms with a little bit more detail and can order some different tests. Things like a PET scan or perhaps based on the presentation of the tumor in the chest from PET scans or CAT scans or even from X-Rays the pulmonologist will refer the patient on to a surgeon. This surgeon is tasked with the job of finding out definitively what this is that is in this patient’s chest. They do that usually through a biopsy, a tissue biopsy that’s either done through a needle biopsy or through a surgical biopsy intraoperatively, often done with either a minimally invasive procedure called a video assisted thoracoscopy sometimes referred to as a VATS. Or if there’s difficulty locating the tumor there’s another procedure which is a more open procedure and that procedure is called a thoracotomy. But either way the area where the tumor is visualized is biopsied by the surgeon and that tissue is sent to a pathology lab to get a definitive diagnosis of what it is that’s growing in this patient’s chest. Now, once a diagnosis is made pathologically by a pathologist looking through a microscope at a slide at the cells and determining based upon different standing that can be done. That this is in fact malignant mesothelioma that it’s in this patient’s chest. Once that’s decided and determined then the decisions are, “What are we going to do for this patient?” There’s surgical options and that’s where the surgeon continues to play a role. There’s chemotherapy and radiation options. Now, chemotherapy is administered by an oncologist. So that surgeon would refer the patient to a caner specialist. An oncologist who would then consult with and evaluate the patient and their medical records and all their signs and symptoms and make decisions as to what type of drugs, pharmaceutical drugs, chemotherapy drugs can be administered to this patient to reduce the size of the tumor. Or perhaps to debulk it or reduce the size of the tumor in anticipation of a future surgery. Or if the tumor is advanced to just control or reduce the size of the tumor for palliative care, to reduce the symptoms or the pain response that a patient’s having. All of these doctors work together and coordinate with each other to assist a mesothelioma patient as they go through a diagnosis of mesothelioma. Now why am I telling you call this? I’m telling you because you have questions about mesothelioma. I’m Joe Williams, I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney and we deal with issues related to mesothelioma each and everyday. We represent patients and their families as they struggle through a diagnosis of mesothelioma. If you have questions I invite you to call our office and we’ll answer your questions. Thank you.