Biphasic Mesothelioma Diagnosis, Cell Types, Treatment & Prognosis

Mesothelioma happens to be dreaded disorder that is caused by the asbestos exposure. Workers who are employed in companies working in the asbestos prone regions are mostly affected with such diseases. Please note that mesothelioma is not the only disease caused due to the asbestos exposure. In fact, there are a number of other serious disorders that happen because of the asbestos exposure.  

W people are caught with asbestos exposure?  Well, the basic idea is that once they go to the asbestos prone regions, the chances are that they get exposed to this naturally occurring mineral. Even if you do not go to the asbestos prone region and if anyone of your family member works at such places, there are chances for you to get a secondary asbestos exposure.

In most cases, diseases like mesothelioma are caused due to the long term asbestos exposure. Earlier nobody knew about the dangers of getting exposed to this mineral. But later when people started experiencing dangerous effects, it was banned as per US law.

Today, asbestos or asbestos related products are banned in the country. The decision has been taken due to the dangerous effects of asbestos. The problem is that once the person gets in touch with asbestos, he starts getting exposed to this mineral. But no symptoms tend to appear initially. The symptoms appear only after a few years, months or even decades.

And this is when it becomes too late to treat such a dreaded disease like mesothelioma. When doctors came to know about such a medical conditions, nobody was able to get the cause of such a disease.

Later it was revealed that it has become apparent mainly because of the asbestos exposure. There are patients who get mesothelioma and other similar diseases. In the long run, however, they get exposed to some other serious conditions as well. It all depends on which part of the body you get the maximum asbestos exposure. It's only then your doctors would be able to know about the treatment.

Talking about biphasic mesothelioma which is a condition caused due to asbestos exposure. The basic fact about biphasic mesothelioma is that it is also called a case of mixed mesothelioma as the symptoms mostly include pleural effusion, shortness of breath and dry cough.

The term biphasic means that the mesothelioma tumor has the presence of both epithelial and sarcomatoid cell types. And this is not something uncommon. In fact the incidence of biphasic mesothelioma can happen mainly because of the long term asbestos exposure.

As we discussed earlier, the long term asbestos exposure can be a reason of so many dreaded disorders, the cause of biphasic mesothelioma can also be due to the same reason as well.

When doctors determined the cases of biphasic mesothelioma, they only differed out the cell shape of tumor. It's because in normal mesothelioma cases, the shape of cells involved are different. But in biphasic mesothelioma, the cell shape involves the presence of both sarcomatoid and epithelial cells.

Doctors further determined that the larger the percentage of sarcomatoid cells, the poorer the prognosis. The above cell type has most commonly seen among pleural patients as compared to peritonial patients. 

You need to know that biphasic mesothelioma happens to be the second most common type of mesothelioma cell type. Some of the most common mesothelioma type includes Epithelial mesothelioma, Sarcomatoid mesothelioma and Biphasic mesothelioma. Alll these types of mesothelioma actually involve different cell types.

This is the reason why all three of them are different. These behave differently due to their respective cell types.  And so, it becomes an essential point that you come to know the basic differences of biphasic mesothelioma along with some other types of mesothelioma cases as mentioned above.

In this section, we are going to give you some of the characters of biphasic mesothelioma. Please know that biphasic mesothelioma, both sarcomatoid and epithelial cell types can be seen existing very close together.

Not only is that, both these cells often seen very close to each other. In biphasic mesothelioma, both the cell types are composed of solid and tubopapillary cells (epithelial subtypes). They can be seen lying scattered among sarcomatoid cells. Another fact to note down is that in biphasic mesothelioma, both epithelial and sarcomatoid cells ratio can vary greatly.

Well, if you go by the treatment of biphasic mesothelioma cases, they happen to be the most difficult ones to treat. It's mainly because of their cell types. This is just one reason why these tumors are difficult to treat.

Doctors while analyzing and examining different mesothelioma cases have found that treating a specific mesothelioma case like biphasic mesothelioma, the cell type plays a crucial role. It's only tumor cells that behave differently in each type of mesothelioma cases.

Hence different line of treatment is picked up while treating cases of biphasic mesothelioma. Please also note that biphasic mesothelioma cases are different as compared to sarcomatoid or epithelioid mesothelioma cases mainly due to their respective cell types.

At the time of treating a number of mesothelioma cases, there are chances when patients have to go through a misdiagnosis. Now, you need to know how to prevent from any sort of misdiagnosis. Well, while doing tests, doctors often recommend a procedure called immunohistochemistry so as to distinguish different biphasic mesothelioma from other conditions that are generally confused with this type of cancer.

Now, using the above technique called immunohistochemistry, doctors can easily detect the particular cell type and this helps in revealing certain types of mesothelioma or tumor cells.

With all the above options, doctors can simply rule out the probability of common misdiagnosis that sometimes include the presence of carcinosarcoma and synovial sarcoma.

While talking about the treatment options of biphasic mesothelioma, these patients are generally not recommended to have an aggressive line of treatment as compared to those with epithelioid type.

It’s due to the fact that biphasic cell type generally carries a poorer prognosis as compared to epithelioid. However, treatment doesn't completely rely on cell type.

Still, in most cases you will find the same line of treatment while detecting biphasic mesothelioma cases. Some of the procedures involve the use of radiation therapy, chemotherapy along with others.

If you look broadly, the cases of biphasic mesothelioma or any other such type of tumor which has caused due to the long term asbestos exposure, doctors approach different line of treatment mainly because of their cell types.

Also Read: How Ohio Mesothelioma Lawyer Helps Asbestos Victims for Compensation?