Do People With Mesothelioma Often Go Into Remission?

A cancer diagnosis often leads to expensive and invasive treatments, followed by years of screening to ensure the cancer doesn’t come back. When surgery, chemotherapy or other cancer treatment effectively eliminates the cancer in their body, doctors will say that they have gone into remission.

Achieving remission is the first step toward being cured of your cancer. Typically, you need to remain in remission for a set number of years depending on the kind of cancer before doctors will feel comfortable reducing or eliminating your screening for recurring cancer.

How frequently do people with mesothelioma achieve remission after their diagnosis?

There Are Currently No Successful Therapies for Mesothelioma

Cancer care options have improved dramatically in the last decade. Unfortunately, while there are incredible immunotherapies available for lymphoma and other, more common forms of cancer, mesothelioma remains very difficult for physicians to treat.

The sad truth is that achieving remission is all but impossible, although treatments can increase how long someone survives after diagnosis and increase their quality of life as well. Those diagnosed with mesothelioma have, on average, a 10% five-year relative survival rate. Their chance of surviving five years after diagnosis is 10% of the average five-year survival rate for people without cancer.

Even connecting with the best treatments possible can be a challenge, as they may be too new for many insurance companies to cover. You may need your own resources to pay for your care. Understanding the profound and permanent impact that your mesothelioma will have not just on you but the rest of your family may spur you into action and motivate you to demand compensation.