Asbestos Disease Appears Most Often in Lining of Lung
Friday, August 13th, 2010A new book entitled “Breathing In America: Diseases, Progress and Hope” by the American Thoracic Society details the toll of occupational-related respiratory disease including mesothelioma—a cancer associated with breathing asbestos dust.
Asbestos exposure causes lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen, as well as other diseases such as asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lung. In New York and New Jersey in the 1970s, asbestosis could be seen in more than 70 percent of asbestos insulation workers who had worked in the industry for 20 years or longer, according to the report.
Asbestos disease most heavily affects those directly exposed to asbestos in the workplace. Among the occupations
typically exposed to asbestos are miners, millers, shipyard workers, asbestos insulators, boilermakers, electricians, plumbers and carpenters. But asbestos disease can also affect families of workers who are indirectly exposed to asbestos dust brought home on the workers’ clothing.
The most common appearance of asbestos-related disease is in the pleura, the thin membrane that covers internal organs including the lungs. Areas of thickened fibrous tissue called pleural plaques may develop and plaques are often a precursor to development of mesothelioma. Excess fluid may also collect, causing shortness of breath and chest discomfort. The fluid —called pleural effusion—is produced apparently in response to the asbestos fibers causing irritation of the pleura.
Worldwide production of asbestos peaked in the 1970s, but miners in Canada, Russia and other countries still dig from the ground more than 2 million tons of asbestos a year. An estimated 125 million people are still exposed to asbestos in the workplace and more than 90,000 people die each year of malignant mesothelioma, lung cancer related to asbestos exposure and asbestosis.
The prognosis for people diagnosed with mesothelioma and lung cancer is bleak with fewer than a fifth of patients diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer surviving more than five years. Research into innovative gene therapies aimed at suppressing tumor growth offer some hope.
Breathing in America was produced as part of the American Thoracic Society’s 2010 Year of the Lung campaign.
