Why See a Mesothelioma Specific Surgeon

I really urge you to see mesothelioma surgeon experts, not just a regular thoracic surgeon. Not that a regular thoracic surgeon's not a good surgeon, it's that mesothelioma, it matters how many you've done in the experience because it is so rare. Most surgeons will never see mesothelioma, so they won't necessarily be able to tell you, oh, you'll get a pleurectomy and decortication, or This is the chance that you'll get a pleurectomy and decortication, or This is the chance that we'll be able to remove it. In doing these for the last ten years and having training under Doctor. Sugarbaker, I kind of have a sense of that. And my sense is that almost always you can do pleurectomy decortication. No matter how aggressive it's growing into the lung, it'll peel off. Yeah, sure, it's a little harder of an operation. May take an extra hour longer, but if you can save the lung and peel it off of the pleurrectomy and decortation, there has been data for that, and we see that. Those patients recover much better If you are asking about treatment options, you need to ask that doctor, whether it's a medical oncologist, a radiation oncologist, a pulmonologist, a primary care doctor, thoracic surgeon, do you see How often do you see meso? We often get scared about it when it comes to other things, like you wouldn't think about it for high blood pressure, and that's reasonable because high blood pressure's very common. Most people see that. Or for breast cancer. It's the most common cancer in women, so maybe you shouldn't you don't necessarily need to ask that from your oncology because it's so common. Mesothelioma is one of the rarest cancers, in the world, but also the most, like, one of the most aggressive cancers. And there's so many different treatment options for it. You need people on your side that's gonna be the most experienced? So that's the question I ask. The other question that I ask or that they should ask is, Have I ever been presented in a tumor board? Mesothelioma, I think it's really important to be presented in a tumor board. What does that mean? Not just your regular tumor board. Every hospital pretty much has a tumor board where you have different sets of doctors that just weigh in on your cancer diagnosis about what to do. Mesothelioma, your tumor board only means something if it's from specialists in radiology, radiation oncology, medical oncology, thoracic surgery, pulmonology, that have expertise in mesothelioma. It is almost like its own entity of thoracic surgery. And so it should be, in my opinion, brought up to a multidisciplinary tumor board, but specializing in mesothelioma. Meaning, I'll give you an example, if you just give it to a regular tumor board, that's just like not getting a tumor board opinion at all because they won't have the expertise in that. And then it's almost even worse because that patient may go with what that tumor board said and they had no idea of the standard of care of what it would be for mesothelioma, that's just their classic checking off the box, they saw a tumor board, They saw a tumor board, this is what it is. So I think that's really the third thing that I would emphasize.