April | 2010 | About Mesothelioma: Asbestos Exposure and Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma Lawyers & Attorneys Info

New Federal Study Examines Incidence of Cancers Among Firefighters

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Firefighters are exposed to smoke, soot and substances in burning buildings that are known human carcinogens such as asbestos, which was widely used in older structures. Do these repeated exposures cause a higher incidence of cancers among firefighters including asbestos-related cancers such as mesothelioma?

The U.S. Fire Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced this week the agencies will collaborate on a study to examine the potential increased risk of cancer among firefighters.

The broad study will analyze the health data of more than 18,000 current and retired career firefighters from suburban and large city fire departments. The study is intended to improve researchers ability to estimate risk for various cancers and to compare risk of cancer with risks for other causes of death. It also is aimed at enhancing current safety knowledge for firefighters.

As they battle fires, firefighters are exposed to soot, smoke and byproducts of combustion such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and contaminants from building products such as asbestos and formaldehyde.

By analyzing cancer cases and cancer deaths among firefighters, researchers will try to determine whether firefighters as a group develop more cancers and whether the cancers are associated with exposures to contaminants to which the firefighters may have been exposed.

“NIOSH has worked extensively with partners in the fire service to address occupational safety and health risks for firefighters,” said NIOSH Director John Howard, M.D. “We appreciate the funding and support from the U.S. Fire Administration as we engage the scientifically complex question of firefighting and cancer risk.”

NIOSH is the federal agency that conducts research and makes recommendations for preventing work-related injury, illness and death.

Labels: Asbestos, Research
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Asbestos-related Disease Reaches Highest Level in England’s Northern Region

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Asbestos is the leading work-related cause of death in the United Kingdom and the death toll of asbestos-related diseases is still increasing.

The number of workers from the England’s North East and Cumbria who die from asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma has reached the highest level on record, government health officials announced. Four hundred people die from asbestos-related illness each year in the region, according to the Health and Safety Executive.

The North East of England was long associated with heavy industry and shipbuilding. Today, the region has one of the highest death rates from mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of lung or abdomen associated with asbestos exposure.

A new support group for mesothelioma victims and their families in the northern region of England announced its start Wednesday. The Northern Asbestos Support & Campaign Group, operating under the auspices of the Northern Trade Union Congress, will be the first of its kind to offer professional and practical support to people affected by asbestos-related diseases across the North East and Cumbria. The group will provide a telephone helpline, advice on benefit entitlements, home visits on request and support for family members at coroner’s inquests.

Michael Blench of Wallsend, chairman of the support group, said in a press release, “As a former shipyard worker, I have known many workmates die from asbestos diseases like mesothelioma. Many more have suffered from conditions like pleural thickening and pleural plaques.”

Blench said asbestos has had a devastating impact on families across the region. He said the group was determined to provide services to victims of asbestos and in conjunction with the trade unions find ways to make workplaces and communities safer by preventing asbestos exposure.

Labels: Asbestos, International News
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Clinical Trial of Experimental Mesothelioma Drug Promising

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Researchers announced positive results from tests of an experimental anti-cancer drug known as NGR-hTNF in controlling the cancer of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer of the lining of the lung associated with asbestos exposure.

NGR-hTNF is a novel drug compound that includes a peptide—a chain of amino acids—that homes in on cancer cells—and a type of protein known as tumor necrosis factor that helps regulate the immune system response to cancerous tumors. Developed by an Italian pharmaceutical company, MolMed S.p.A., the drug is designed to better permeate cancerous tumors and act directly on blood vessels that feed a tumor’s growth.

In an article published this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Italian researchers said NGR-hTNF was given to 57 mesothelioma patients either every three weeks or every week. The patients had previously undergone chemotherapy and had a relapse. The results showed the drug temporarily stopped the advance of the cancer in 26 patients for about five months on average. Median survival was 12 months.

The researchers said the disease control provided by NGR-hTNF and patients’ ability to tolerate the drug warranted further study with patients with advanced pleural mesothelioma.

The drug is being studied as an alternative treatment for patients whose cancer is not responding to the more standard chemotherapy regimen involving permetrexed. A phase III clinical study is underway. Researchers are exploring it use by itself or in combination with other medications.

On the basis of the latest results, the drug was granted orphan drug designation for treatment of malignant mesothelioma in the United State and in Europe, MolMed S.p.A., announced.

The federal Orphan Drug Act provides special status to drugs used to treat a rare disease or condition at the request of the drug sponsor. MolMed S.p.A., an Italian pharmaceutical company, is developing the drug. The orphan designation provides tax credits and government incentives to sponsors that bring develop drugs to treat rare diseases. About 2,000 to 3,000 people die of mesothelioma in the United States each year, but incidence of the disease has increased significantly in recent decades.

The drug must go through the Food and Drug Administration marketing approval process like any other drug. Orphan drugs often receive expedited review because they are for serious or life threatening diseases, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Labels: Mesothelioma, Research
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Mesothelioma Epidemic Grips Italian Coastal Area on Gulf of Trieste

Monday, April 19th, 2010

The coastal areas of Trieste and Monfalcone in northeastern Italy have a thriving maritime industry and an epidemic of malignant pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs associated with asbestos exposure. The epidemic is not likely to subside anytime soon.

In a recently published study, Italian researchers reviewed the occupations of 811 patients from Trieste and Monfalcone diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma from 1968 through 2008.

More than half of the mesothelioma patients had marine jobs such as shipbuilding or work at the ports, where asbestos was widely used until the late 1970s and not banned until 1992. A number of studies in the United States, Europe and Japan have pointed to a strong link between shipyard work and mesothelioma. For that reason, merchant marines, dock workers as well as Navy veterans are at higher risk of asbestos-related disease.

About 80 percent of the patients, in the Italian study, were initially exposed to asbestos before 1960 and three fourths were exposed to asbestos for 20 years or longer. The researchers noted that while people can develop mesothelioma after short exposure to asbestos, the vast majority of people with mesothelioma have a long history of exposure.

Mesothelioma symptoms often do not appear until many decades after initial exposure, making it difficult to diagnose. In three fourths of the cases the researchers analyzed, the latency period from initial exposure to appearance of symptoms was more than 40 years.

The researchers said the latency period varied markedly by occupational group. For people who worked in shipbuilding, the average latency period was 49 years. For people who worked with asbestos insulation, it was about 35 years.

In the Trieste-Monfalcone area, the vast majority of mesothelioma victims are men who were employed in heavy industries that used asbestos. But some women had second hand exposure to asbestos as well. The researchers identified 34 women who developed mesothelioma after washing the dust-covered work clothes of family members. The average latency period for the people who had domestic exposure was 51 years.

The latency period was generally longer for those who had environmental or second hand exposure to asbestos than for workers who had more intense workplace exposure, the researchers noted.

Limitation on the use of asbestos began in the Italian shipyards in the late 1970s and further restrictions were imposed in the 1980s. Italy banned asbestos in 1992.

The researchers noted the restrictions on asbestos use meant that workers had lower exposure to asbestos in recent decades. But they said they had not observed any lessening of the epidemic of mesothelioma in recent years. They said mesothelioma represented a major health problem in the area.

Researchers at the Center for the Study of Environmental Cancer at the Italian League Against Cancer conducted the study. It was published in the Indian Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

Labels: Asbestos, International News, Research
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New York Firefighters Who Inhaled 9/11 Dust Have Abnormal Lung Function Years Later

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

By Wade Rawlins

New York Firefighters and rescue workers who inhaled the noxious cloud of dust, chemicals and asbestos debris at Ground Zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks still have significantly abnormal lung function years later, a new medical study says.

In a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the New York University School of Medicine and the New York Fire Department said they had observed little or no recovery of lung function among firefighters in the nearly decade since they responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center.

The medical researchers compared before and after 9/11 lung function tests of more than 12,700 active and retired New York Fire Department firefighters and rescue personnel — more than 90 percent of those who responded. Their aim is to understand the longer term health effects of the massive exposure to dust and debris at the World Trade Center site based on repeated follow-up lung testing.

The massive exposure to dust at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and repeated exposure to lesser amounts over the subsequent recovery operations led to significant declines in respiratory function in the first year after 9/11 among both firefighters and EMS workers with no history of smoking, the researchers say.

Firefighters had the heaviest exposure to dust and experienced the largest decline in lung function in the first year after 9/11, researchers said. It was more than 12 times the average rate of loss of lung function adjusted for age. Surprisingly, the FDNY firefighters recovered little or none of lung function as shown by follow up tests in a six year period September 2008, the researchers said.

Of those tested, about 13 percent of firefighters and 22 percent of EMS workers who never smoked still had abnormal lung function seven years after 9/11, the study said. Before 9/11, few firefighters had abnormal lung function tests.

Typically, firefighters show no long lasting respiratory effects of smoke inhalation, the researchers said. In the absence of overwhelming exposure, smoke inhalation during firefighting usually causes mild and reversible respiratory impairment.

The researchers said they could not analyze the effect of the use of masks and respirators on lung function, because the use of such safety equipment was minimal during the first weeks after 9/11

Declines in respiratory function also occurred and persisted among non-FDNY rescue workers and volunteers at Ground Zero. other volunteers and workers. But health records were not available among this group to compare lung function before 9/11 to afterward.

Some dust from the World Trade Center collapse contained asbestos and other contaminants, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But the agency said at the time that the majority of air and dust sample monitored at the site did not indicate levels of public concern. Inhaling airborne asbestos is closely associated with respiratory disease including lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung. Mesothelioma has a long latency period and typically takes 20 to 40 years after exposure for symptoms to appear.

Labels: Asbestos, feature, Research
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Researchers Estimate Effect of Surgery to Extend Lives of Mesothelioma Patients

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Researchers at the University College London sought to estimate whether patients with malignant mesothelioma who undergo surgery to remove a portion of the cancerous lining of the lung or abdomen survive longer than patients who receive other kinds of treatment. Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen closely associated with asbestos exposure.

Treatments typically available to patients diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation or a combination of the three. This is known as multi-modality treatment, or more simply a multi-pronged assault on the cancer. To analyze the medical data, researchers divided the data on mesothelioma patients into four groups:

• Patients who did not have surgery;
• Patients who had their chest cavity opened surgically, but did not have organs removed;
• Patients who had tissue such as a lung and the lining of the lung removed, but did not undergo chemotherapy afterward;
• Patients who had organs and cancerous tumors removed as well as chemotherapy and/or radiation.

The researchers estimated the survival advantage of treatment approaches that included surgery at nine months at best. They said that was the most optimistic estimate, assuming that the difference in survival was entirely attributable to the treatment and not to the patient’s relative fitness to withstand surgery. They said this should be taken into consideration given the risks of surgery.

Patients who had surgery and chemotherapy or radiotherapy showed the best results, surviving about 32 months on average – or roughly twice as long as patients who had other types of treatments, researchers reported. The study was published in the European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Labels: Mesothelioma, Research
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Rate of Mesothelioma High Near Former Asbestos Factory

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

A new Slovenian public health study of people living near an asbestos manufacturing village found the incidence of malignant mesothelioma is 8.5 times higher among nearby residents than among the country’s population as a whole. Malignant mesothelioma is an incurable cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen, associated with asbestos exposure.

For more than 70 years, the picturesque alpine valley of Nova Gorica, Slovenia, part of the former Yugoslovia, was the base of operations of a Salonit Anhovo factory that produced asbestos cement pipes and sheets. The factory consumed nearly 90 percent of all asbestos used in Slovenia and had a workforce of 2,600 at its peak in 1980. Approximately 98 percent of the asbestos the factory used was chrysotile, while a small percentage was amphiboles.

While still picturesque, the alpine valley has acquired the nickname “asbestos valley” today. Its population is struggling with an epidemic of asbestos-related disease that is expected to keep increasing for another 10 to 15 years..

The 2010 study by the Institute of Public Health of Ljubljana, Slovenia traced malignant mesothelioma among the 50,000 residents of Nova Gorica and nearby Tomlin using medical records. The first two cases of asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lung from breathing asbestos, in the Salonit Anhovo factory were confirmed in 1981, which marked the start of the ongoing epidemic, researchers said.

The study found that from 1983 to 2005, a disproportionately high 28 percent of all mesothelioma cases in Slovenia were diagnosed in the studied population, which accounts for only 2.5 percent of the country’s total 1.94 million population. Most of the people who acquired the disease worked in the factory, or lived in the surrounding area, the study said.

The rate of mesothelioma for all of Slovenia was 21.4 cases were 100,000 population, the study said. The rate in Nova Gorica, which includes the Anhovo village, was 170.2 cases per 100,000. In the nearby Tomlin area, the incidence was 60.9 per 100,000.

The study said the epidemic of mesothelioma and asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lung, in the area, were associated with manufacturing of asbestos at a local factory from 1922 to 1996. Because of problems caused by asbestos, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia proposed a decree prohibiting and restricting production, trade and use of asbestos and asbestos products. The decree was passed in 1998, and a ban on asbestos has been fully enforced since January 2003.

Labels: Asbestos, International News, Research
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Drug Used to Treat Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

The chemotherapy drug ALIMTA, manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co., has received a recommendation from the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence as an ongoing treatment option for patients with locally advanced or mestastic non-small cell lung cancer.

The recommendation is the second step in a three-step process toward approval for funding by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. Without approval by the National Institute, patients struggle to have government health insurers pay for the drugs.

ALIMTA has previously received a positive final recommendation from the National Institute as a treatment for pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the chest cavity linked to asbestos exposure. ALIMTA is given in combination with cisplatin, another anti-cancer medication, when surgery is not an option.

The National Institute’s recommendation was based on data that indicated ALIMTA improved overall survival for non squamous cell, non small cell lung cancer patients in a maintenance setting. Maintenance therapy represents a new approach to treating advanced non squamous cell lung cancer. In maintenance therapy, patients whose first line therapy controlled the disease, undergo additional treatment immediately with a maintenance regiment rather than waiting for the disease to recur before receiving additional treatment.

Being exposed to asbestos increases the risk of developing lung cancer and other serious respiratory diseases including mesothelioma and asbestosis.

In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ALIMTA for treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer to maintain the effect of the initial treatment.

Labels: Cancer, Research
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Contributing Author

Wade Rawlins is a former environmental reporter with the Raleigh News & Observer.

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