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Hi. I'm Kaylen Jackson, the Medical Outreach Director for The Mesothelioma Center, and
on this week's edition of "What Does it Really Mean?" I am going to be going over the difference
between curative and palliative care. In the simplest terms, curative care involves
treatment in an effort to extend the patient's overall length of life; while palliative care
involves treatment that will hopefully improve the patient's quality of life.
Both types of care can involve surgery, chemotherapy or radiation.
Curative surgical options include resections that remove the cancer in an attempt to help
the patient live longer. This could include an extrapleural laminectomy or a pleurectomy
decortication. Palliative surgical options attempt to eliminate
or reduce the potential side effects or symptoms caused by the disease. For example, many patients
who are diagnosed with mesothelioma experience plural effusions which Missy talked about
in last week's video. A procedure called a talc pleurodesis eliminates
the pleural space where that fluid builds up and this can help alleviate the pain or
pressure a lot of patients experience as a result of these effusions.
Chemotherapy and radiation can be used as a curative measure to help stop or even reduce
the size of the tumors altogether. In a palliative measure, it's used to help either keep the
cancer at bay or maybe keep it to spreading to other areas that would cause additional
pain or discomfort. To find out more about curative or palliative
care and which focus might be right for you or a family member, please feel free to contact
us and thanks for watching this week's edition of "What Does it Really Mean?"