Mesothelioma cancer affects many former workers who were employed at factory, military, shipyard and construction projects. Mesothelioma has been proven to be primarily caused by exposure to asbestos, even though there are other aggravating factors that also worsen a mesothelioma condition.
What is Mesothelioma?
Mesothelioma are tumors that affect the lining surrounding many of the body’s internal organs. The tumors can cause symptoms such as severe chest pain, fatigue, anemia, low blood sugar levels, lung collapse, and shortness of breath. Mesothelioma can also spread as tumors all over the body except for the brain, the skeletal system and the adrenal glands. Mesothelioma symptoms will usually have a long latency time before they manifest as much as 15 to 30 years. The cancer is difficult to treat or prevent because in most cases it is not diagnosed until decades after the patient had their initial exposure to asbestos which caused the mesothelioma tumors.
How Does Asbestos Exposure Occur?
Asbestos is the common word given to a wide range of minerals that have been used for many years of history being most recently processed for use in several industrial applications. Asbestos is efficient as an inexpensive insulator which made it popular for use in the construction of homes created before the 1970s. It was also applied a lot to military ships during World War II. Asbestos in its raw mineral form has small particles which can easily become airborne, and when they are inhaled can cause a great risk to health. Once the asbestos particles get inside the body, their abrasive dust fragments lead to the development of mesothelioma tumor cancer. Unfortunately, there have been shipyard workers and factory people that have been exposed to the inhalation of asbestos particles long before the correlation between asbestos and mesothelioma became recognized.
What Can Be Done About Mesothelioma
Contemporary construction workers involved with the renovation of older buildings are much at risk for exposure to asbestos which induces mesothelioma. Because mesothelioma has many symptoms that are similar to many other common diseases, its early diagnosis is very complicated to do. A detailed review of a patient’s medical history and occupational experience is necessary to obtain an accurate diagnosis of mesothelioma. A thorough patient medical history review is usually followed by thorough physical examinations that include chest X-rays, lung function tests and CT scans or MRIs.
Mesothelioma can be resistant to surgery, so there are few other treatments that might provide some form of cancer relief. Chemotherapy is a common treatment administered as a recourse, and immunotherapy treatments have shown promise to provide various results of success.
