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How Life Expectancy Is Affected by Stage and Other Factors
Decisions regarding treatment can be some of the most important and difficult ones made after a mesothelioma diagnosis. Learn more about the treatment options that have the highest likelihood to improve your prognosis.
Not long ago, doctors and patients considered a mesothelioma diagnosis to be a death sentence. Luckily, we’ve come a long way since then — and the treatments are only getting better. Experts are still searching for a cure, but they’re making progress every day.
Standard treatment options like surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy have been proven to extend survival and improve quality of life, giving patients more time with their family and loved ones. Some therapies aim to cure the cancer, while others treat symptoms to make life easier.
Many patients who were disheartened by the cancer’s average life expectancy of one year have beaten the odds, providing hope to the entire mesothelioma community. Three- to five-year survival is becoming more common, and there are even extraordinary cases of patients who have extended their survival beyond a decade.
How Life Expectancy Is Affected by Stage and Other Factors
Mesothelioma can lessen your life expectancy, but the amount depends on factors like your overall health and the cancer’s stage and cell type. Learn about the factors that influence how long people live with this cancer.
Life expectancy is the estimated number of years a person is expected to live. The average life expectancy for people in the U.S. is around 78 years, but asbestos-caused cancers, such as mesothelioma and lung cancer, often cut lives short.
Doctors estimate life expectancy by looking at statistics on how long people with mesothelioma tend to survive. According to an international 2013 study, mesothelioma shortens life expectancy by about 17 years.
Most people are older than 65 when diagnosed with mesothelioma, but some are diagnosed in their 50s or earlier. People diagnosed at a younger age stand to lose more years of their life expectancy.
A number of things — including lifestyle and environmental factors — can influence how long someone with mesothelioma may live. Decades of research have revealed three factors that significantly influence mesothelioma life expectancy: Your overall health, the cell type of your cancer and its stage at diagnosis. Your age and gender can also play a role.
