What is Mesothelioma? by Bart Samuri

Most people who have or have had mesothelioma have been exposed to asbestos about 35-40 years before contracting the disease. Asbestos have been known to come from certain insulators, cements, roofs and household cleaners, among other things. An exposure to asbestos for as little as 2 or 3 months can result in mesothelioma, however most asbestos have been removed from products since the 1980’s. The symptoms of this disease are not specific, which can result in a delay in diagnoses. Some early symptoms of mesothelioma are pneumonia, shortness of breath, chest pain, and cough. This cancer can be fatal and spread to other areas of your body through your blood. Cat scans, X-rays and MRI’s are used to diagnose this cancer.

If you are aware of being exposed to asbestos in the past, please contact your doctor immediately, as the sooner you are diagnosed, the more successful treatment will be. If you are not sure that you were exposed to asbestos, but have worked in construction or with house held cleaners before the 1980’s, you should ask your doctor to get tested just to be safe. Mesothelioma is usually treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

If you are diagnosed with the disease while it is in a late stage, the expected survival rate is only 8-12 months, however patients who are diagnosed early have been known to have a much better survival rate, about 40% living for five years. This is a very serious disease, and people with any suspicion of being exposed to asbestos before should immediately contact their doctors, in order to catch the disease while it is still in it’s early stages.



Bart Samuri writes about various topics. This article is free to re-print as long as nothing is changed, all links remained intact, the bio remains in full and the rel="nofollow" tag is not added to any of the links. Thank-you - Please visit Asbestos and Mesothelioma Awareness.com

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What Is Mesothelioma
By: Andrew Mills
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"Mesothelioma" is the term used to describe a cancerous tumor that involves the mesothelial cells of an organ. Mesothelial cells are cells that form a protective lining over the lungs, heart and abdominal organs. The most common type of mesothelioma is pleural mesothelioma. The pleura is a thin membrane found between the lungs and the chest cavity. It provides a lubricated surface so that the lungs do not rub and chafe against the chest walls.

What causes it?

Virtually all cases of mesothelioma are related to inhaling of asbestos fibers. There are about 3,000 cases per year (mostly men over the age of 40) and there will be about 300,000 cases before 2030. Mesothelioma usually spreads rapidly through the mesothelial cells to the heart and abdominal organs. The life span is typically 24 months after diagnosis, but it depends on what stage the cancer is detected, the health of the patient and other factors.

Although asbestos exposure causes mesothelioma, it has a latency period after exposure that could last 15 to 50 years. This means that someone who worked in a factory with asbestos 40 years ago could be developing mesothelioma now. Anyone who knows they were exposed to loose asbestos fibers should be tested regularly for mesothelioma.

Diagnosis

The onset of mesothelioma is usually very slow. The first symptom is a constant pain in the chest. This pain is later accompanies by difficulty breathing due to an accumulation of fluid in the chest. Other symptoms include coughing, fever and weight loss. Mesothelioma can be diagnosed by your doctor with a chest CT-scan.

Prognosis (the outcome)

Mesothelioma advances in 4 stages:
Stage I - the tumor is limited to the area of the lining of the lung and usually limited to only one side of the chest.
Stage II - the tumor extends to other organs within the chest cavity, such as the heart or lymph nodes in the chest.
Stage III - the tumor expands to the other side of the chest or it spreads into the abdominal organs. The lymph nodes outside the chest are affected.
Stage IV -the cancer spreads to different parts of the body far outside the chest area (liver, brain, bone, etc...).

Mesothelioma is an extremely deadly disease. The average survival time is about one year from date of diagnosis. About 20% of patients who find their cancer early and treat it aggressively will reach the five-year mark.

For more information and articles about mesothelioma go to http://www.mesothelioma-health.net

This article was posted at iReprint.info on 2003-12-20. Webmasters and publishers are free to reprint this article as long as the resource box and all the links remain intact.

About the Author

Andrew Mills is the webmaster of http://www.mesothelioma-health.net, http://www.doggies.ca and http://www.doggypost.com, and have been creating web content for over 5 years.

Malignant mesotheliomas in the thorax arise from either the visceral or the parietal pleura. Although uncommon they have assumed great importance in the past few years because of their increased incidence among persons with heavy exposure to asbestos. In coastal areas with shipping industries in the UNITED States and Great Britain and in Canadian and South African mining areas, up to 90% of reported mesotheliomas are asbestos-related. There is a long period of 25 to 45 years for the development of asbestos related mesothelioma and there seems to be no increased risk of mesothelioma in asbestos workers who smoke. This is in contrast to the risk of asbestos related bronchogenic carcinoma already high and is markedly magnified by smoking. Thus for asbestos workers those who are also smokers), the risk of dying of lung carcinoma far exceeds that of developing mesothelioma.

Asbestos bodies are found in increased numbers in the lungs of patients with mesothelioma and mesotheliomas can be induced readily in experimental animals by intrapleural injections of asbestos.

Malignant mesothelioma is a diffuse lesion that spreads widely in the pleural space and is usually associated with extensive pleural effusion and direct invasion of thoracic structures. The affected lung is ensheathed by a thick layer of soft gelatinous, grayish pink tumor tissue.

Microscopically malignant mesotheliomas consists of a mixture of two types of cells either one of which might predominate in an individual case. Mesothelial cells have the potential to develop as either mesenchymal stromal cells or epithelium like lining cells. The latter is the usual form of the mesothelium, an epithelium that lines the serious cavities of the body. The mesenchymal types of mesothelioma appears as a spindle cell sarcoma resembling fibrosarcoma (sarcomatoid type), whereas the papillary type consists of cuboidal, columnar or flattened cells forming a tubular and papillary structure ( epithelial type) resembling adenocarcinoma. Epithelial mesothelioma may at times be difficult to differentiate grossly and histologically from pulmonary adenocarcinoma. Special features that favor mesothelioma include the following (1) positive staining for acid mucopolysaccharide, which is inhibited by previous digestion by hyaluronidase; (2) lack of staining for carcinoembryonic antigen (CFA) and othere epithelial glycoprotein antigens, markers generally expressed by adenocarcinoma (3) strong staining for keratin proteins with accentuation of perinuclear rather than peripheral staining (4) on electron microscopy the presence of long microvilli and abundant tonofilaments but absent microvillous rootlets and lamellar bodies. The mixed type of mesothelioma contains both epithelial and sarcomatoid patterns. Cytogenetic abnormalities occur in mesotheliomas but not reactive mesothelial proliferations a diagnostically useful feature.

Clinical course

The presenting complaints are chest pain, dyspnea and as noted recurrent pleural effusions. Concurrent pulmonary asbestosis (fibrosis) is present in only 20% of patients with pleural mesothelioma. Fifty percent of those with pleural disease die within 12 months of diagnosis and few survive longer than 2 years. Aggressive therapy (extrapleural pneumonectomy, chemotherapy , radiation therapy) appears to improve this poor prognosis in some patients. The lung is invaded directly, and there is often metastatic spread to the hilar lymph nodes and, eventually , to the liver and other distant organs.

Mesotheliomas also arise in the peritoneum, pericardium, tunica vaginalis, and genital tract. Peritoneal mesotheliomas are particularly related to heavy asbestos exposure, 50% of such patients also have pulmonary fibrosis. Although in about 50% of cases the disease remains confined to the abnorminal cavity, intestinal involvement frequently leads to death from intestinal obstruction or inanition.

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For more information about malignant mesothelioma www.medicalhealthcenter.net