How is Mesothelioma DiagnosedAttorney Joe Williams

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
is generally two ways that physicians (doctors) diagnose mesothelioma. 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 builds up, it's called a "pleural effusion." But it's basically just a buildup
of fluid between a bony ribcage 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 clinical diagnose or be suspicious of mesothelioma. For mesothelioma
victims, the definite diagnose comes in the form of a biopsy.

And for pleural mesothelioma,
it's a biopsy of the pleural. And the pleural 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 would say the most common one would be a video assisted thoracoscopy,
sometimes known as a VAT (a video assisted thoracoscopy). 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 pathologists (they're specialized doctors who deal 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 of 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'll be happy to answer your questions. Thank you..