Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that attacks the mesothelium, a membrane that surrounds and protects many of the body’s internal organs as well as the walls of the chest and abdominal cavities. The term almost always refers to malignant mesothelioma, as benign cases of the disease are a small fraction of the overall occurrences.



Mesothelioma has become a widely known and publicized disease despite its relative infrequency because of the fact that the only proven cause for its development is asbestos exposure – specifically, inhalation or ingestion of tiny, microscopic asbestos fibers that eventually cause the development of mesothelioma. Asbestos related diseases are among the primary industrial medical afflictions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The disease has an unusually long period of latency. Persons exposed to asbestos may not develop symptoms of asbestos related disease for twenty to fifty years after the asbestos exposure has taken place. For that reason, the widespread use of asbestos through the 1970s is still causing new diagnoses of mesothelioma today among workers who have long been retired. Although today there are only about 3,000 new cases of the disease diagnosed in the U.S. annually, mesothelioma has taken tens of thousands of lives in this country since asbestos was introduced as an industrial material in the late 19th century.

Source:Mesothelioma