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Nine out of ten cases of mesothelioma are caused by exposure to asbestos. This information can help you to prevent this deadly disease. If you already have the disease, this information can help you to understand anywhere it came from. Asbestos is a mineral that is mined in many countries around the earth. The people that worked in the mines where exposed to the dangers along with people in the construction industry. Asbestos was widely used in the construction of many buildings for a century or more. Asbestos fibers are stronger than steel, resistant to chemicals, resistant to high temperatures, it does not conduct electricity, and they are very flexible. All of this adds up to an excellent building material.

Asbestos has been used in thousands of products over the years. Many years ago, it was used in many several types of buildings for insulation, soundproofing, electrical wiring, and many other areas. Then it was found that when damaged asbestos releases fibers into the air. When these fibers are inhaled into your lungs, the effects are devastating. Even the slightest second hand exposure is found to be hazardous. With asbestos being used widely in buildings where group lived and worked this had to be fixed. Breathing of the fibers causes fibrosis in the lungs leading to mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other types of cancers and lung problems.

How asbestos fibers enter the lungs

Asbestos is a term for a group of magnesium silicates that have fibrous structure. Asbestos minerals consist of fibers that are easily separable. Individual fibers are extremely small and fine, light enough to be carried in the air. Doctors who treat lung disease consider all forms of asbestos precarious, and capable of causing cancer. The six most ordinary are amosite, chrysotile, crocidolite, and the fibrous varieties of tremolite, actinolite, and anthophyllite. Amphibole forms of asbestos, whose fibers are straight, are more likely to cause disease than chrysotile, whose fibers are curved.

In the way of mining, manufacturing and installing products using asbestos, tiny fibers are dislodged and develop into airborne. Workers in an background where asbestos is used cannot avoid inhaling the airborne fibers. Poor ventilation and insufficient or no protective apparatus increase exposure to this lethal fiber. Workers have described mining and factory environments where the air was white with asbestos dust, and their clothes and hair were covered within the fine white fibers.

How asbestos fibers damage the lungs

Most fibers are cleared from the lungs within hours of inhalation. Coughing carries them to the throat in a layer of mucus, where they are either spit out, or swallowed, and make their way absent of the body.

Not all inhaled asbestos is cleared from the lungs. Various fibers progress into the alveoli, the tiny pockets within the lungs where oxygen is exchanged with the bloodstream. The fibers may remain for years, even the rest of a person's life. Amphibole asbestos fibers, which are longer and straighter than chrysotile fibers, tend to remain in the lung the longest.

Asbestos fibers move toward the lower portion of the lungs and the diaphragm, the large muscle that moves the lungs in breathing, which sits just under the lungs. In autopsies, most asbestos disease of the lungs is seen the bottom lobes of the lungs and on the surface of the diaphragm. Asbestos fibers which lodge in lung tissue and are not expelled remain to damage the tissue as long as they stay there, as the mesothelioma grows gradually and silently. Symptoms may not appear for 15 to 40 years after exposure.

Asbestos fibers and mesothelioma

Asbestos fibers work their way through the lungs into the pleural cavity, the space in the chest where the lungs sit. The asbestos fibers invade the mesothelium, the thin, moist, flexible tissue that lines the cavity. Mesothelioma specialists have two theories about how asbestos in the pleural cavity causes mesothelioma. One theory is that as the asbestos fibers migrate through the pleural cavity, they enter tissue walls and irritate tissues. The irritated cells respond by forming scar tissue. The mesothelial cells show an stirring immune response, scarring, and eventually the uncontrolled proliferation of cells that is the hallmark of cancer.

The next theory focuses on actions at a molecular level, speculating that asbestos fibers interact with individual mesothelial cells, interfering with their cell division, or possibly damaging the cell's DNA during mitosis, or cell division. The part of the DNA that regulates the cells' growth and reproduction is damaged, so that reproduction is no longer controlled. Cells initiate to reproduce wildly. This wild cell growth creates the thickened cancerous tissue and eventually begins to invade other organs.

Mesothelioma is not a common disease though the number of patients with mesothelioma has been on the rise. Every year, more than 2,000 new patients are diagnosed with mesothelioma in the USA alone and this deadly cancer generally affects men than women while older people are more at risk than the adolescent.

About 80 percent of the mesothelioma cases are connected with exposures to asbestos though rarely, some cases are reported without any connection of having exposures to asbestos.

These types of asbestos related diseases are commonly diagnosed in people who happened to be exposed to asbestos particles for a longer period. However, there are people working with asbestos related products for long time and as yet not experienced major health related problems.

The symptoms and signs of mesothelioma patients may not come out early. They may appear after 30 to 50 years from the person's first connections to asbestos regularly. When the signs come, they may give out chest pains, stomach pain, swelling of the abdominal area etc. Patients show heavy weight loss in these stages too.

When the disease occurs in the abdomen, the patient may experience constipation, anemia, fever and unusual blood clotting patterns. When mesothelioma attacks the mesothelium and spreads further from the mesothelium to the other parts of the body, these patients experiences pain, swelling of the neck and difficulty swallowing. As these symptoms are ordinary with other conditions as well, it is imperative to consult a doctor to analyze the real cause.

Treatment for mesothelioma depends on the location it occurs in the body. Age and the health conditions of the patients are also significant factors when treating these people. Surgery, radiation, chemotherapy etc are prominent treatments though nothing much can be done for the survival of the patients except prolonging the time factor to a patient's death.

Although the highest risk of developing mesothelioma comes from prolonged exposure to asbestos fiber, some people who develop mesothelioma have had only very brief exposure. The first symptoms of mesothelioma could not show up for 15, sometimes for as long as 30 or 40 years after the victim's exposure to asbestos. By the period symptoms are painful enough for a victim to seek medical attention, the disease may have progressed so far that life expectancy will be measured in months.

If you or a loved one has received a diagnosis of mesothelioma, and you believe that the mesothelioma developed as a findings of workplace exposure to asbestos, you may have a legal claim against the corporation that permitted the exposure, or the manufacturer of the asbestos product. To learn more approaching your rights, you should consult a lawyer who specializes in asbestos claims.