Women’s Health Information

That’s a name that strikes fear into the hearts of many in today’s modern world and yet as recently as 50 years ago Mesothelioma was almost completely unknown outside of a small group of medical practitioners. Today it’s a word that is frequently heard on the television news as little people battle big multi-national companies for compensation for the dreadful disease that they now face.

Mesothelioma is also known in some parts of the world as Asbestosis because the disease only comes from exposure to asbestos fibers. It doesn’t have to be prolonged exposure and you aren’t safe from it just because you have never worked in the asbestos industry either.

Just one single fiber is enough to trigger the disease and more and more people who have never been near an asbestos mine or worked near an asbestos processing plant are succumbing to the disease.

Certainly the disease is most prevalent, and almost guaranteed, in anyone who has either worked at an asbestos mine or in a factory where asbestos related items were manufactured. The families of those people are also affected because fibers from the mine or the plant invariably came home on the clothes and in the hair of the workers.

Many wives of asbestos workers have contracted the disease after being exposed to those fibers while washing their husband’s work clothes. Children have been similarly exposed and many years later begin to display the symptoms in of Mesothelioma and subsequently succumb to the disease.

But the disease is not just confined to the workers and families of workers in asbestos mines and associated plants. Mesothelioma has appeared in growing numbers in the general population. That is because for many years asbestos was a commonly used ingredient in a variety of building materials and it was also used in insulation.

Fibro – a common building material used in homes in the period from 1940 through to the late 1960’s and beyond – contained a high level of asbestos. Fibro was used for roofs and walls in houses and public buildings. Many schools here in Queensland, where I live, have contaminated fibro roofing and huge numbers of houses were built around the world with that same material.

Asbestos was also used in material used for insulation. That insulation went into wall cavities in houses, around steam lines in naval ships and even in lagging around the boilers on steam locomotives.

Initially many of the places that it was used were quite safe. The building material was stable and unless it was broken the asbestos remained undisturbed. However, age has led to a deterioration in the fibro and the insulation and as the material has deteriorated asbestos fibers have been disturbed and are found in the air.

In other instances house renovations have uncovered the insulation that has contained asbestos and that has released the fibers into the air.

There is a case in record here in Queensland of a teacher who contracted Mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos particles and fibers as they settled on the school desks from a deteriorating fibro roof. She ultimately passed away but now all the children that she taught are facing a very uncertain future.

The sad fact is that today, and for many years into the future, the world is going to be living with Mesothelioma and it is going to begin appearing in people who have perhaps never even known that they had come into contact with asbestos or asbestos related products.

Stuart Livesey

Mesothelioma is a malignant form of cancer that develops in the mesothelium and it strikes over 3,000 people every year. The mesothelium is the protective lining that covers most of the body’s internal organs and this form of cancer attacks that lining.

The most common points of attack for this form of cancer are the outer linings of the lungs and chest cavity however it may occur in other areas of the body including the lining of the abdominal cavity and the sac around the heart.

And the attack comes from the asbestos particles or fibers that are inhaled by mine workers or process workers who work in the asbestos industry. Those same particles and fibers are also inhaled by anyone who comes into contact with asbestos that is used in insulation or building materials.

While asbestos is no longer mined except under the most stringent safety conditions what has already been mined and processed is dispersed widely in the community in the forms mentioned above. Unfortunately as the products that contain that asbestos deteriorate with age the fibers that cause Mesothelioma are released into the air that many of us are breathing.

Those particles and fibers can be taken into our lungs where they lodge and then lay dormant for years. Sometimes that dormant period can last for decades but almost invariably there comes a time when the disease awakes and begins to attack the host body.

Mesothelioma can start from just once particle and once it starts it quickly spreads, usually through the lungs. The symptoms that most sufferers display are not readily recognizable as Mesothelioma because they are common to a number of other disorders including heart problems because sometimes sufferers present with shortness of breath and chest pains.

Other symptoms can be mistaken for viral pneumonia, a persistent cough and some less common symptoms include fever, night sweats and weight loss.

In around 60% of people suffering from this form of cancer it is the right lung that is affected first. Why that should be the case is not and even less clear is the fact that around only 5% of sufferers present with the cancer showing in both lungs.

People suffering from the peritoneal form of Mesothelioma often display symptoms that include swelling of the abdomen, nausea, weight loss and bowel obstruction.

Up until now the only want of reaching an initial diagnosis was by having a chest xray and sometimes a CT scan or ultrasound may also be used however early detection may now be possible thanks to a new test developed in Australia.

This new text measures blood concentrations of certain proteins produced by the Mesothelioma cells. In clinical research the new tests and a very level of accuracy and it may be that the blood test will show conclusively whether or not a patient as Mesothelioma.

Stuart Livesey