Mesothelioma Prognosis

The overall prognosis for individuals with mesothelioma is not very good. The disease has among the lowest five year survivability rates among different cancers and remains extraordinarily difficult to treat. While research is ongoing and our knowledge of the disease is definitely increasing faster than it ever has, doctors know an actual cure is still years away. However, large variabilities exist in many mesothelioma patients and there are people who have lived full lives after their diagnoses.

Mesothelioma Prognosis: Statistics

When mesothelioma is examined in purely statistical terms, the prognosis figures are discouraging. Pleural mesothelioma typically presents in an advanced stage of progression with a ten-to-fourteen month lifespan expectation from diagnosis. Peritoneal mesothelioma often presents with a slightly more optimistic lifespan expectation and patients surviving two to five years are not uncommon. However, after five years, statistics show survivability dropping to well below thirty percent.

Statistics, however, do not tell the whole story. There are a variety of factors in the development of a patient’s mesothelioma prognosis and subtle differences among these factors can have a dramatic impact on the course the disease will take. The statistical models used in mesothelioma often miss the extraordinary differences between a person’s stated prognosis/diagnosis and the way in which the disease actually impacts his or her life. While rare, it is not unknown for an individual to live for ten or sometimes even twenty years after a diagnosis of mesothelioma.