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Lung Cancer and Asbestos
For most of the last century, asbestos was known as the miracle mineral. It was used extensively in building for insulation, and woven into nearly every type of item that could be manufactured. As early as 1897, there were reports that asbestos could cause serious lung damage in those that were exposed to it, but those reports were either intentionally suppressed or ignored. By 1931, although, the British government had started to take action to speak to the concerns about lung cancer in those who worked with asbestos. By the near the inauguration 1970s, the United States government had followed suit and begun to formulate safety rules for handling asbestos. By that time, it was about fifty years too late for thousands upon thousands who had been exposed to asbestos in the workplace, the home and the atmosphere.
The effects of exposure to asbestos in the environment and the workplace include lung scarring, pleural plaques, asbestosis, lung disease and a particularly virulent, aggressive cancer known as mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is related approximately exclusively to exposure to asbestos. It is cancer of the pleura - the lining roughly the lungs rather than in the lungs themselves. Even a very dumpy expression exposure decades ago may result in mesothelioma. Smoking addition the risk of developing mesothelioma dramatically. A tobacco user who was showing to asbestos has a 50 to 90 times greater chance of developing lung disease, including mesothelioma than a non-smoker. By contrast, a non-smoker exposed to asbestos has a five times greater prospect of developing lung cancer.
Mesothelioma and other asbestos related lung cancers are diagnosed through a mixture of medical history, imaging technologies like x-rays, Magnetic Resonance Imaging and CT scans, and biopsy and tissue sampling. Those who know that they were exposed to asbestos in the workplace or environment should have expected screenings for lung nonstandard condition, as the incubation period between contact and development of lung cancer can be as long as 50 years.
As with any lung cancer, early diagnosis is the best indicator of survival. The generally accepted statistics for those who are name with asbestos related lung cancer or mesothelioma are grim. In some cases, a patient diagnosed with mesothelioma may be told that his life expectancy is 8-12 weeks, but there are many mitigating factors that may affect that. Patients in some clinical trials that use a multi-action approach to treating mesothelioma have near a 40% five day survival rate - nearly that of those diagnosed with other types of lung cancer.
Mesothelioma seems to respond best to aggressive treatment that combines surgery, chemotherapy and radiation psychoanalysis. Because mesothelioma is so often diagnosed in the later stages, doctor's is seldom an option, but there are some talented new advances in chemotherapy to treat asbestos correlated lung cancers.
In February of 2004, the FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION approved the first pills specifically to treat mesothelioma, Alimta manufactured by Eli Lilly. Clinical trials with Alimta showed that using Alimta in combination with another drug commonly used to treat lung cancers, cisplatin, increased the life expectancy of patients name with mesothelioma. In a time where new-fangled progression are incident nearly on a weekly basis, even a few months of extended living can offer hope for a cure.
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