If you show the signs and symptoms that suggest that you may be affected by mesothelioma you should seek medical attention. Your physician will begin by performing a physical examination, looking for lumps or any other oddities. Following the initial examination your physician may order imaging scans to better evaluate your symptoms. This may include a computerized tomography (CT) scan of your chest and abdomen search for irregularities.

Mesothelioma is often originally misdiagnosed due to its rarity and unspecific symptoms. In many cases physicians rule out other more common ailments before considering mesothelioma as the possible culprit.

If your doctor believes that mesothelioma may be responsible for your symptoms he or she will perform a biopsy. In the biopsy the physician will remove a small portion of tissue for the laboratory to test for mesothelioma.

This is the only way to determine if a person is truly affected by mesothelioma.

Different types biopsies may preformed depending on what portion of the body is affected.

This tissue sample will be analyzed by a laboratory under a microscope to see if mesothelioma is present and if so, what types of cells are involved.

If you are diagnosed with mesothelioma your doctor will next have to evaluate how far along the cancer is in a process known as staging.

Staging

After a person is diagnosed with mesothelioma the next step is to evaluate the extent, or stage, of the cancer. To do this a physician will order numerous imaging test to gain a better perspective of the areas that may be affected by mesothelioma. These tests may include:

These highly detailed images give doctors the ability to see what areas of a person’s body are most likely affected by mesothelioma and in turn help determine the stage of the cancer.

After careful evaluation of this data the doctor will assign a stage to the individual’s mesothelioma. Stages progress upward from 1 to 4 as the cancer begins to affect more and more of the victim’s body.