What to Ask Your Doctor After a Mesothelioma Diagnosis
Thoracic surgeon, Dr. Fontaine talks about the importance of asking your mesothelioma doctor questions about your cancer.
When a patient gets diagnosed with mesothelioma, it's important for them to ask their doctor are you sure this is mesothelioma? Because a lot of other cancers such as lung cancer mimic mesothelioma. And it's important to have the correct diagnosis to get the correct treatment because the treatments are quite different between lung cancer and mesothelioma And very often, it's easy to confuse mesothelioma for lung cancer. So the first question I would ask my doctor is this the correct diagnosis? The second is what type of mesothelioma? There are three different types of mesothelioma, epithelial mesothelioma, which is the most common and the less aggressive type versus sarcomatoid, which is the rarest, but most aggressive type. And knowing the type of mesothelioma is the type of treatment we offer patients. So that would be the second question I would offer. I would ask my physician. The third question I would recommend to ask your physician is how much experience do you have treating mesothelioma? Because it would be important to seek not just an individual with experience with mesothelioma. But rather a group of physicians working together under one roof in a specialized cancer center. That's where you would be able to get the best treatment, the latest treatment, and the most innovative and clinical trials as well.
