Acute Pain (definition of)

One interesting aspect of cancer is that by itself, it represents a perverse kind of immortality. They are cells that do not die - until they kill their host.

It is not the cancer itself that kills the patient, but rather what the cancer does to the internal organs - and this is also what causes the acute pain associated with many types of cancer, like mesothelioma.

What happens is that as the malignancy grows, it applies pressure to the internal organs. For example, with pleural mesothelioma, the cancer winds up blocking the lymphatic system, causing a buildup of fluids - which exerts pressure on the lungs, making it difficult to breathe. It can also affect the heart muscle.

Surgery during the later stages of mesothelioma is meant primarily to ease acute pain. These surgeries are known as palliative, as they are not intended to treat the cancer (which by the later stages is usually inoperable in any event), but relieve patient discomfort.

There are some different options available here. The first one is usually thoracentesis (or parecentesis in the case of the abdomen) which is a process of inserting a tube into the affected area in order to drain the fluids that have built up and put pressure on the lungs. Surgeons may also perform a procedure known as pleurodesis, which actually removes the space between the lung or other organ surface and the inner wall of the body cavity. This may be done either surgically or chemically; scar tissue is created so the two surfaces come together. Although the surgery itself can be immediately painful, it ultimately brings relief of the worst symptoms.

In worst-case scenarios, the surgeon may remove a lung completely. Obviously, this seriously reduces the patient's oxygen capacity, but in most cases, the relief from acute pain outweighs this issue.