Decortication
When a person develops a disease in the lung, kidney or brain, a doctor may wish to remove the infected portion. The process for removing the outer surface of the infected area is known as decortication. In almost all cases, general anesthesia is used to keep the patient comfortable during the procedure. The most common use for this procedure is to remove unhealthy cells from the lung. A patient may have developed some sort of lung-related illness (lung cancer, mesothelioma, asbestosis, etc.) and needs the cancerous growth removed.
The patient must remember that the procedure of decortication involves minimizing the pain and symptoms of the disease. It does not, in any sense, cure the person from the type of cancer that they might have. There are certain instances of advanced stage cancer, and doctors are unable to remove the entire tumor without rupturing the cancer and having it spread. The incision for the procedure could be large or small, depending on the area that is being operated on. Since general anesthesia is used, decortication is considered major surgery.
By using decortication, there are many benefits for treating numerous types of cancer. In pleural-type cancers, the removal of the damaged membrane may benefit the patient by relieving infection and removing the scars caused by the inflammation. The lungs, however, require a different procedure to remove the infected area. Lung cancer causes a lack of expansion within the chest wall. Through decortication, doctors peel away the restrictive layer, allowing the lung to re-expand properly. This, in turn, allows the patients pulmonary and other chest functions to work properly and relieves some of the pain and distress that the cancer is causing.
In any case, decortication is recommended to be used in conjunction with another form of treatment. Chemotherapy is a method that is used along with decortication and proves to be the most helpful in extending survival rates of patients. This depends, however, on the stage of the cancer and how the patient is responding to the removal of the infected tissue.
Last modified: December 17 2007.
