Asbestos Mesothelioma from One Who Knows

New York, NYAsbestos mesothelioma may be rare, but it affects more than 3,000 Americans every year; and Dr. Raja Flores knows a great deal about it. The professor and chief of thoracic surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York sees more than 50 cases annually. And while it may be rare, it has been reported that the incidence of mesothelioma is on the rise—increasing over the past 20 years. "Asbestos exposure is the number-one risk factor," says Flores. "That refers to naturally-occurring minerals present in many industrial products, like cement, textiles and insulation."

It's not just a North American problem, either. Cement is the watchword in Japan, where a former asbestos cement plant forms the basis for a study determining excess mesothelioma deaths in residents living within close proximity to the plant. "We used the estimated asbestos fiber concentration to predict the excess mesothelioma deaths from 1970 to 2049," wrote S. Kumagai and colleagues, Osaka Prefectural Institute of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health, in comments published October 8th in Health and Medicine Week.

"We predicted that the exposure under study will cause 346 excess mesothelioma deaths with a range of 296 to 382 deaths. This prediction suggests that considerable medical resources will be needed through 2049 as a result of past asbestos exposure in this region." Their study was recently published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

Flores notes that detecting asbestos cancer is problematic, due to the long incubation period associated with mesothelioma—and there are no characteristic symptoms for mesothelioma that make it easy to diagnose. "Basically, the warning signs are not specific," says Flores. "People who have asbestos exposure are the main group that needs to be on the alert."

Flores notes that shortness of breath is a red flag, usually a sign of fluid accumulation in the chest. But most asbestosis patients do not exhibit symptoms until the disease has spread to stage three or four.

By then, it's often too late. While chemotherapy is one treatment option, as are two avenues of surgery (one involves the removal of a lung afflicted with asbestos mesothelioma, the other spares the lung), there is ultimately no cure. Just the hope to slow it down.

"Many people don't even know they've been exposed," says Flores, in comments published October 20th in the New York Daily News. "There can be a 20- to 30-year latency, so it's years after they're exposed that they see symptoms."

Flores notes the importance of not only remaining cognizant about exposure to asbestos in a fiber-prone area such as an industrial setting—it's also important to recognize the danger of asbestos fibers on clothing. "If you have a relative who comes home after a long day of working with asbestos, be very careful not to inhale it off the clothes."

Workers, whose wives regularly laundered their asbestos-laden work clothes, only to die from simply doing the laundry, have filed asbestos claims. Asbestos lawsuits have closely followed.