For abdominal mesothelioma, an abdominal x-ray checks the fluid in your belly.
Sometime an x-ray may show not only effusions, but also mass, or signs of asbestos accumulation, pleural plaques and calcifications or scarring due to asbestosis and chronic inflammation.
Drain of the fluid is done by needle in the chest or abdominal cavity. The name is thoracocentesis or pleural aspiration from chest, and abdoparacentesis or peritoneal aspiration in tummy. …show more content…
CT is a special x-ray machine that shows sliced images of your body. CT scan of chest or abdomen shows the swellings in organs, cavities, and lymph nodes. A contrast dye may help to the scan. CT scans show pleural effusion, pleural thickening, pleural calcification, spreading of tumor into chest wall. However, CT do not really distinguish benign asbestos disease, lung cancer or mesothelioma. Doctors also use CT scans for guiding needle aspiration of suspicious pleural masses.
Thoracoscopy is the procedure when a surgeon makes small cut in your chest wall between two ribs and looks through a thoracoscope (a tool with a video camera). The biopsy (tissue sample) goes to a lab to check for cancer cells.
Bronchoscopy allows doctors to look inside the airways. A thin flexible tube (bronchoscope) helps to get samples of tissue and send them sent to a lab for testing for cancer