Cancer News Information

Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer in which malignant (cancerous) cells are found in the mesothelium, a protective sac that covers most of the body's internal organs. Each year, more than 2,000 new cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed within the United States, many of which end up being terminal.

While there is no one-size-fits-all cure for mesothelioma, researchers and doctors have been working on different treatments to help make this rare form of cancer more manageable. Currently, treatment for mesothelioma generally depends on the location, stage, general health and age of the mesothelioma patient. From that point, patients may receive one or more of a combination of treatments that involve surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy.

Does Chemotherapy Treatment Work?

Chemotherapy is considered a palliative treatment modality which means that it can help reduce the symptoms of mesothelioma and perhaps the size of the tumors, but it is not curative. Within the last decade, chemotherapy containing cisplatin-antifolate combinations has been shown to improve responses and prolong survival in mesothelioma patients. Based on the successes shown in clinical trials, a trio of research scientists in The Netherlands launched their own population-based study to "assess the impact of this development on clinical practice and survival at a population-based level."

The study focused on 4,731 Dutch patients diagnosed with mesothelioma between 1995 and 2006. For the periods 1995-1998 and 2005-2006, the use of chemotherapy to treat mesothelioma jumped from 8% to 36%. At the same time, median survival for chemotherapy-treated patients increased from 10.1 months in earlier years to 13.1 months in more recent years. The researchers summarized their findings by stating that increased chemotherapy use at the national level did improve survival rates of mesothelioma patients, but they also cautioned that there may still be alternative explanations as to why this is the case.

Alimta and Cisplatin

Cisplatin is a platinum-based chemotherapy drug marketed as Platinol and used to treat a number of different cancers, including mesothelioma, some carcinomas such as small cell lung cancer and ovarian cancer, lymphomas and germ cell tumors. Inside cancer cells, cisplatin and other platinum-based drugs trigger cell death, killing the cancerous cells. In the United States, the platinum-based drug, cisplatin, is usually combined with another drug, Alimta, for treating mesothelioma. Alimta is an antifolate drug, which works by blocking the activity of folic acid inside cells interfering with cellular metabolism.

The FDA approved the Alimta plus cisplatin combination after a clinical trial demonstrated that the two drugs were more effective than one drug. In the July 2003 edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology the published results reported a median survival time of 12.1 months for mesothelioma patients who received Alimta and cisplatin versus 9.3 months for the mesothelioma patients who just received cisplatin. The researchers also found that the addition of folic acid and vitamin B12 helped to reduce the toxicity of the drugs without adversely affecting survival time.

It is the hope that as research continues there will also continue to be better alternatives (and hopefully a cure) for those who suffer from mesothelioma.

Disclaimer: The information in this article is for educational and informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in this article.

When asbestos dust is initially inhaled through either the nasal passage or the mouth, it immediately begins to get lodged within the internal tissues that surround the lungs. This trapped dust begins to cause irritation and inflammation, as it activates a process that produces several different chemicals. These chemicals are commonly known as cytokines. Cytokines induce cellular and inter-cellular changes within the lungs and the mesothelial cells. The combination of these cytokines together with the tiny particles of lodged asbestos dust, begin to cause a process that proceeds to a malignant transformation within the once healthy set of lungs.

There exists within the body various sets of genes that cause either growth promotion, or growth suppression. These genes can easily be damaged by either internal or external changes within the body. When growth promoting cells either lose their ability to promote growth, or the growth of these cells is accelerated, the growth suppression cells no longer pay attention to the bodies tumour suppression cells. This in turn causes the cells to multiply at an accelerated rate. All human body cells are designed to divide a certain number of times before they eventually die, leaving the cells that have had their growth accelerated, more likely to become cancerous.

Very few damaged cells actually become cancerous at this stage, leaving the small number of cells that have become cancerous to divide into even more cancerous cells. When cancerous cells divide, they help the cancer to spread throughout the affected lungs at an exceptionally fast rate. Asbestos related lung cancer takes many years to mutate within the bodies organs before it is usually diagnosed, which means that when a patient is eventually diagnosed with the disease, it is usually found to be in its advanced stages and in need of immediate treatment. There are various modern-day treatments that are used to treat asbestos related lung cancer.

Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy, and Stereotactic Body Radiosurgery are among the more common treatments used to treat asbestos related lung cancer, as previously where they have been used, a reasonable degree of success has been achieved. Surgery is another option, although it is usually only considered as a last option in the treatment of patients with asbestos related lung cancer, and only after all other forms of treatment have either failed, or have not shown a complete success. Usually, surgery results in an exceptionally low five-year to ten-year after-op survival rate for most patients.

If lung cancer is suspected in a patient, a series of different tests will be carried out to confirm the diseases presence (diagnosis), and to determine how widespread the disease has become (staging).

What are X-rays, CT Scans, and MRI Scans?

Usually patients are diagnosed with lung cancer when a doctor orders a chest X-ray which is associated with another illness. If lung cancer is detected by the chest X-ray, a CT (computer assisted tomography) scan, or a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan may also be ordered to further confirm both the diseases diagnosis and staging.

CT scans and MRI scans are tests that use computerized imaging to show in greater detail the size, shape, and exact location of a suspected tumour. At the same time the images will show whether the cancer has spread to another part of the body. If the cancer has spread to other organs within the body, further tests will be ordered by the doctor.

What is a Lung Biopsy?

A lung biopsy is where tissue is removed from the tumour and inspected under a microscope to confirm whether cancerous cells are present or not. This may be done via a needle being inserted through the wall of the chest to take a sample from the tumour, or via surgery where the wall of the chest is opened and either part or all the tumour is removed.

Lung biopsies are necessary to determine an accurate diagnosis, and also to identify the specific type of lung cancer present in a patient.

What is a Sputum Cytology?

A sputum cytology is a test used on cells that are coughed up from either the patient's lungs or breathing tubes, and are examined under a microscope to see whether they are cancerous or not. The test may also determine the specific type of cancer a patient has, although it will not show the precise location of the tumour. If the sputum cytology test is found to be positive, further tests will need to be carried out.

What is Staging?

Staging is a scale used by doctors to show how advanced (widespread) the lung cancer is within a patient. Staging also assists doctors to determine an accurate prognosis (a prediction of the likely future outcome of the disease). Once the prognosis has been evaluated by a doctor, an appropriate treatment plan can begin for the patient.

Each different stage of lung cancer is treated differently, and depending on the condition of a patient.

What Is Lung Cancer?

When an uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells begins to form within the lungs, it is commonly known as lung cancer. The lungs are made up of cells that cause either growth promotion, or growth suppression, and are programmed by nature to form in a certain shape, and to function in a certain way. However, when these cells become damaged by either internal or external changes within the body, the bodies programming usually begins to go wrong.

When growth promoting cells either lose their ability to promote growth, or the growth of these cells is accelerated, the growth suppression cells no longer pay attention to the bodies tumor suppression cells. This in turn causes the cells to multiply at an accelerated rate with all disregard to how nature programmed them to function correctly. As the cell acceleration begins to take place, the outer tissues of the lungs are also invaded by cancerous cells, as are other nearby tissues.

This change enables the cancer in the lungs to spread with relative ease to other organs within the body. Because of the relatively large size of the lungs, lung cancer usually continues to grow for many years without showing any common signs, or symptoms. When the lung cancer finally gets diagnosed, usually after a doctor has ordered a chest X-ray associated with another illness, the disease is found to be in its final stages, and in need of urgent treatment.

How Common Is Lung Cancer?

Cancer of the lungs is now one of the most common cancers diagnosed around the world, and accounts for over 200,000 new cases each year in the USA alone. Today's statistics show that lung cancer now affects both men and women equally, where as some years back the cases diagnosed in women were much less. This may be put down to the fact that more and more women are now smoking. Since 1987, lung cancer has also been found to be much more common in women than breast cancer.

Most people who get diagnosed with lung cancer are either active smokers, or ex-smokers who have now given up. But also, many other people who have never directly smoked get diagnosed with the disease too. In recent years, mortality rates have increased 150% in women, and 25% in men, with studies showing that estrogen, may even help the disease to grow, increasing the risk of it developing in women.

Success for mesothelioma victims and their families in obtaining justice and their rightful entitlement to mesothelioma compensation can often be a long process requiring many different factors to be carefully considered when determining exact cause and liability as a consequence of asbestos exposure and the contracting of an asbestosis disease.

There is, invariably, a considerable amount of background work which needs to be carried out by a highly experienced and specialist asbestosis lawyer and when a final resolution is arrived at in a long running mesothelioma claim case, it is often as a result of more than one appeal and a previous judgement being overturned.

Asbestosis lawyers will attempt to recover financial damages urgently needed to provide the patient, spouse or close family with the urgent and vital support at a critical time. Financial redress can include the cost of often large medical bills - possibly including specialist equipment and care, travel expenses relating to medical treatments, expenses not covered by health insurance, group or family support, and other types of fees and funeral expenses.

In a majority of cases a confirmed diagnosis is made when the mesothelioma has reached an advanced stage and there may be less than 12 months left to live. The judicial process will then have to be continued by a spouse or member of family working with their asbestosis lawyer.

The long period that elapses of between 15 to 50 years from the initial exposure - most often in industrial workplaces and factories but also in public sector buildings such as schools and hospitals - and the emergence of asbestosis symptoms may often cause a considerable challenge in tracing original employers, and/or their insurers.

Insurers have previously contested their liability over the issue of asbestos awareness and whether the risk to the claimant eventually contracting mesothelioma could be reasonably foreseen by the employer at the time of the original exposure, and at the level which would likely cause the employee to be exposed to a future health risk.

Consequently, a defence could be mounted upon the expected reasonable steps having been actually carried out to prevent foreseeable injury. However, it has been recorded many times that little to no information, face masks or other protection equipment/clothing were provided to men and women working around asbestos during the peak use years from the 1940s to the 1970s and 80s.

While in certain cases of single exposure, it only requires to be shown that the presence of asbestos materially increased the risk to the claimant of contracting mesothelioma, in other instances a defendant may shift the focus of their defence to a light mesothelioma exposure risk claim. This type of case would require proof that where an exposure to asbestos had shown to have caused an effect, whether any 'breach of the duty of care' by the employer had taken place.

Here, the ability of an asbestosis lawyer to win an asbestosis claim may rely more on showing that there was a breach of duty in each individual case of asbestos exposure.

While there will be an attempt to settle the case on behalf of a client without going to trial, scrupulous preparation will of course, still be required, including the drafting of pre-trial briefs, notifying hearing witnesses and assembling a considerable case file of support documentation. Not only will the victim's medical history be essential but a full employment history, detailing employment duration and asbestos exposure frequency will be crucial to determine which employer is likely to be liable.

Despite a three year period allowed for entering a claim for mesothelioma compensation, delay can often occur until a confirmed diagnosis then reveals the disease has spread to an advanced stage. There are a number of reasons for not recognising the appearance of the first signs of mesothelioma or asbestosis symptoms.

Most often there is a long gestation period of up to 50 years from the initial period of exposure and a connection is not readily made, even though the victim may recall the circumstances of working with or surrounded by asbestos material at their place of work.

Lack of asbestos awareness to the deadly health risks was not only prevalent at the workplace during the peak years of asbestos use in UK industry but 'secondary exposure' could occur to wives and close family at home when washing their husband, brother or uncle's work clothes containing the fibre dust.

Another common reason for failure to correctly identify shortness of breath, a chronic cough or chest pain as likely first signs of mesotheliomaor anasbestosis-related condition is because they are strikingly similar to a number of other common types of respiratory disease, such as influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc.

Crucially, the difference between mesothelioma and lung cancer can also be confused at first as exposure to asbestos can cause both conditions, even though the two occur in different tissues of the body. While lung cancer is a disease which affects just the lung tissue, mesothelioma attacks the lining of the lungs, heart, or abdomen, and is only caused by the breathing in of airborne, asbestos dust fibres.

Despite mesothelioma cancer being responsible for less than 1 per cent of all cancers diagnosed in the UK, prevalence of the disease has increased almost four-fold since the 1980s, when the first and most lethal types of asbestos had only just begun to be banned.

Another significant reason for a delay in seeking asbestos advice is often due to attributing the onset of breathing difficulties and bouts of coughing to a lifelong smoking habit. Cigarette/ tobacco smoking was particularly prevalent in the heavy industries of shipbuilding, railway engineering, auto assembly and manufacturing throughout much of the twentieth century, alongside the widespread use of asbestos.

An added complication is the effect smoking and asbestos exposure can have upon the risk of lung cancer mortality for asbestos workers. In 2011, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published a report, which provided figures for the period, 1971 to 2005, the year that white asbestos chrysotile was finally banned from use, despite importation being stopped six years earlier.

The HSE report revealed that " of the 1,878 lung cancer deaths among the 98,912 UK workers surveyed who were exposed to asbestos, just 2 per cent of lung cancer deaths occurred to those individuals who had never smoked".

Further figures show that of those employees who worked with asbestos and who also smoked, an estimated 3 per cent of lung cancer deaths were attributable to asbestos only, 66 per cent to smoking only, and 28 per cent to the interaction of asbestos and smoking.

A separate study of smoking and exposure to chrysotile ( white) asbestos also found that there was a three and a half times risk at least of lung cancer from smoking in those working with high asbestos exposure to asbestos cement, insulation, friction or textile products in contrast to those working with low asbestos exposure.

Generally, survival rates of around five years for lung cancer patients are higher at 15 and 75 percent, while mesothelioma patients are considerably lower at 10 per cent with only a 4 to 18 months prognosis.

Over 200,000 thousand Americans (men and women) get diagnosed with lung cancer in the USA every year (70% are elderly). Although most patients receive some kind of treatment before going into remission (a period of time when the cancer is either responding to treatment satisfactorily, or is being controlled), lung cancer is one of the most recurrent forms of cancer that is diagnosed. Many sufferers of lung cancer get cured and go on to live more years, but an increasing number of sufferers become prone to falling into a state of relapse (where the disease returns).

When doctors refer to a five-year or ten-year cure period, what they are actually referring to is the remission period of a patient. During remission the disease may return at any time, although the percentage rate gradually begins to decrease the longer the remission period. If during the first five-years of treatment the disease does not return, then there is a strong possibility that the patient will go on to live at least another five years or more. The problem is that when lung cancer is diagnosed, it is usually in its later stage, and more difficult to treat.

Patients under remission should continually watch for signs that may indicate the cancer is recurring, or has actually returned. There are three main signs a sufferer should watch out for:

1. Changes in breathing patterns, which could include either a shortness of breath, or wheezing when there are no underlying medical reasons why either should exist. They may even occur when a patient is resting. Usually when the cancer has returned, the tumor presses either directly on the lung, or on the surrounding tissues of the lung. A chest X-ray, a CT (computer assisted tomography) scan, or a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan may be ordered again by the doctor to re-confirm this.

2. Lumps that can appear anywhere on the body (especially in the chest or upper area of the body) may signify a recurrence of the disease. Lumps may indicate that a new tumor is beginning to grow, or an existing one is either growing again, or beginning to spread. When lumps occur in the area of the neck, armpits, or groin, this usually indicates that the cancer has spread to the lymphatic system. The cancer has metastasized when it has affected distant organs outside the original tumor area, usually having spread into the bloodstream to create new tumors or new clusters of cancerous cells.

3. Unexplained and sudden weight loss when there is no reason for it usually indicates that the cancer has invaded other parts of the body. The cancer can attack vital organs affecting their ability to function correctly, causing weight to disappear notably during a short period of time. When this happens, it is advisable to seek the help of a doctor again to check that a recurrence of the disease has not taken place. Usually a test of the phlegm cells under a microscope will detect a recurrence before a tumor becomes visible.