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Mesothelioma - The Asbestos Factor

By: Richard H Ealom INTRODUCTION: Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that is nearly always brought about by previous exposure to asbestos. The majority of people who develop it have inhaled asbestos particles while being employed on a job where asbestos is used, or they have been exposed to asbestos dust and fibre in some other way, such as by washing and cleaning the clothes of a family member who worked with or around asbestos.

It is a serious disease with an average survival time of only 1 to 2 years after diagnosis. Unlike lung cancer, there is no association between mesothelioma and smoking. The disease occurs more often in men than in women and risk increases with age, but this disease can appear in either men or women at any age. It is also known to occur in those who are genetically pre-disposed to it.

SYMPTOMS: It may not appear until 20 to 50 yrs after exposure to asbestos. Diagnosing it is usually difficult, because the symptoms are like those of a number of other conditions. These symptoms include shortness of breath due to pleural effusion (fluid between the lungs and the chest wall) or pain of the chest wall, and more generalized symptoms such as weight loss.

Symptoms may also include abdominal pain, ascites, or an abnormal buildup of fluid in the abdomenal mass in the abdomen, problems with bowel function. Other signs of peritoneal mesothelioma may include bowel obstruction, blood clotting abnormalities, anemia, and fever.

If the disease has spread beyond the mesothelium to other areas of the body, signs may include pain, having trouble swallowing, or swelling of the neck or face.

In severe cases of the disease, the following signs may be present: blood clots in the veins, which may lead to thrombophlebitis, disseminated intravascular coagulation, a situation causing severe bleeding in many body organs, jaundice, or yellowing of the eyes and skin, low blood sugar level, pleural effusion, pulmonary emboli, or blood clots in the arteries of the lungs, severe ascites. These symptoms may be brought about by mesothelioma or by other, less serious diseases.

TREATMENT: There are several kinds of treatment plans available: Radiation, Surgery, and chemotherapy including recently approved drugs. Despite treatment with chemotherapy, radiation therapy or surgery, the disease comes with a poor prognosis. For persons with localized disease, and who can tolerate a radical surgery, radiation is given most often post-operatively as a consolidative treatment.

Although the disease is normally resistant to curative treatment with radiotherapy alone, palliative treatment regimens are sometimes used to ease symptoms arising from tumor growth, such as blockage of a major blood vessel. In February 2004, the United States FDA approved pemetrexed (brand name Alimta) for treatment of cancerous pleural mesothelioma.

CONCLUSION: Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that is nearly always caused by previous exposure to asbestos. Cancer that affects the pleura can cause these signs and symptoms: A painful chest wall, pleural effusion, or fluid surrounding the lungs, shortness of breath, fatigue or anemia, wheezing, hoarseness or cough, blood in the sputum (fluid) coughed up (hemoptysis).

It is described as localized if the condition is found only on the membrane surface where it started. Screening tests might diagnose mesothelioma earlier than conventional methods thus increasing the survival prospects for patients.

The processes leading to the development of peritoneal mesothelioma remain unresolved, although it has been proposed that asbestos fibres from the lung are transported to the abdomen and associated organs via the lymphatic system.

It has been said that in humans, transport of fibres to the pleura is essential to the pathogenesis of the disease.

Experimental evidence indicates that asbestos acts as a complete carcinogen with the development of mesothelioma happening in sequential stages of initiation and promotion.

Although reported incidence rates have risen in the past 2 decades, the disease is still a relatively rare occurence. Incidence of malignant mesothelioma presently ranges from about 7 to 40 per 1 million in industrialized Western nations, depending on the amount of asbestos exposure of the populations during the past several decades.

Between 1973 and 1984, there has been a threefold rise in the diagnosis of pleural mesothelioma in Caucasian men. From 1980 to the late 1990s, the death rate from mesothelioma in the U.S. increased from 2,000 per year to 3,000, with men 4 times more likely to acquire the malignancy than women. These rates may not be accurate, since it is possible that many cases are mis-diagnosed as adenocarcinoma of the lung, which is difficult to separate from mesothelioma.

Working with asbestos is the major risk factor for mesothelioma. However, the disease has been reported in some individuals without any known exposure to asbestos. In addition to mesothelioma, exposure to asbestos increases the risk of lung cancer, asbestosis (a noncancerous, chronic lung ailment), and other cancers, such as those of the larynx and kidney.

Smoking modern cigarettes does not appear to increase the risk of developing the disease. The Kent brand of cigarettes used asbestos in its filters for the first few years of production in the 1950s and some cases of mesothelioma have resulted.

Article Source: http://www.lifeweightloss.com

About the author: Richard H. Ealom is an ezinearticles.com writer and has written many articles on Diseases,Causes,Cures. To learn more about Mesothelioma visit Cancer Breakthrough USA! You have permission to use this article as long as this box is kept unchanged.

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