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  • Mesothelioma

    Mesothelioma is a rare and deadly form of cancer that affects the chest cavity, the abdomen, and sometimes the lining of the heart. Risks of developing this cancer generally occur following asbestos exposure. Symptoms of asbestos cancer and mesothelioma typically appear many years following exposure.

    There are two types of mesothelioma. The first, localized and benign mesothelioma, is not cancerous, and it is not caused by asbestos. It is usually curable with surgery to remove the tumor. The second type is malignant mesothelioma. Researchers disagree somewhat on whether asbestos is the only thing that causes malignant mesothelioma. While some researchers say asbestos is the sole cause of mesothelioma, others say that eighty percent of pleural mesothelioma in men, and twenty percent of pleural mesothelioma in women is caused by asbestos. These researchers point out that other things that may cause mesothelioma, including scarring of the pleura, chronic inflammation, chemical carcinogens, viruses, hereditary predisposition, chronic emphysema, therapeutic pneumothorax, and therapeutic irradiation.

    All the researchers, however, agree that asbestos does cause mesothelioma, even if it isn’t the only cause. Although any of the six types of asbestos can cause mesothelioma, some types have traditionally been considered more dangerous than others. There are three common types of asbestos seen the most in commercial and residential applications. The first type is white, chrysotile asbestos that comes from serpentine rocks. It is the most commonly used form of asbestos in the United States, with ninety to ninety-five percent of all asbestos used being of this form. White asbestos comes largely from Canada, and is considered to be somewhat less dangerous than other types of asbestos because the fibers in white asbestos are curlier, and the ends are not as sharp as in some other forms. As a result it is somewhat easier for the body to eliminate chrysotile asbestos, and the fibers that do make it into the lungs may do somewhat less damage. Chrysotile is the only type of asbestos that fits within the serpentine form of curly fibers. This is not to say that white asbestos is safe. Since it is used so extensively, it is the type of asbestos most commonly associated with asbestos related illnesses, not limited to only mesothelioma. It can be more difficult to associate white asbestos with disease because the fibers are less likely than other types of asbestos fibers to remain in the lungs where they can be studied during autopsy. Additionally, people who work in chrysotile mining usually have more tremolite in their lungs than chrysotile. Some trigger than the chrysotile asbestos220.

    The research further shows that people who die from mesothelioma have higher levels of asbestos fibers in their lung tissue than people who die from other causes. One study, for example, showed 250,000 or fewer asbestos fibers per gram of dried lung tissue for people who died from non-mesothelioma issues, while people who died from mesothelioma had an average of 698,000 asbestos fibers per gram of dried lung tissue221. Another study showed that a group of people who had died from lung cancer had 16 million asbestos fibers per gram of dried lung tissue whereas the patients who died from malignant mesothelioma, had an average of 18 million asbestos fibers per gram of dried lung tissue.

    It is interesting that at least until the year 2000, some laboratories only looked for asbestos fibers that were at least five microns in length, even though studies have since shown that elevated chrysotile asbestos levels can sometimes only be found when using electron microscopes and measuring fibers that are far smaller than those excluded by other studies. These were the limits set by researcher Stanton in a comprehensive asbestos study done on rats. In the Asbestos Tissue Burden Study (ATBS) done in 2000, and reported in 2001, for example, the ninety-six percent majority of asbestos fibers found in a study of post mortem lungs and mesothelial tissue of 151 people, were both shorter, and thinner than the limits set by researcher Stanton and accepted by such organizations as the Occupational Safety and Health Association.

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    We’ve collected asbestos cancer and mesothelioma information from a variety of authoritative sources including the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.