Mesothelioma Myths Debunked

Mesothelioma is a rare cancer, and because of that, there are many myths surrounding the disease. For mesothelioma patients and their families, helping to dispel these myths and educating others about the cancer can lead to better support. In an article published last year, Michele Carbone, MD, PhD, one of the country’s premier experts on mesothelioma and director of the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, presented detailed information about mesothelioma to clear up many fallacies and inconsistencies reported in association with the asbestos-caused cancer.

Myth #1: The number of mesothelioma cases is declining now that asbestos use is regulated.

While many uses for asbestos were banned in the mid-1970’s, the risk from exposure continues to this day because of mesothelioma’s long latency and incubation periods. Symptoms, most commonly affecting the lungs, can sometimes take between 10-70 years to appear making diagnosis of the disease difficult.

Asbestos continues to be a threat to workers exposed through their occupations and in buildings that were erected or renovated prior to the ban. However, even though asbestos exposure in the workplace has largely been eliminated in the United States, asbestos products used in older buildings degrade over time resulting in asbestos fibers being dispersed into the environment.

According to Carbone, over 20 million people in the United States are at risk of developing malignant mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure. Although prior to the 1950’s, mesothelioma was rare, as noted by Carbone, mesothelioma is now responsible for approximately 3,000 deaths per year in the U.S. Carbone further estimates that mortality rates from mesothelioma will increase by 5-10% per year in most industrialized countries until about 2020.

First responders to the World Trade Center terrorist attacks are now at risk of developing mesothelioma. Asbestos was used to insulate the lower half of the first World Trade Center tower, and some studies report over 400 tons of asbestos dust was released into the air upon the collapse of the buildings. A pattern has emerged of negative health effects among firefighters who responded to the 9/11 tragedy. That pattern persuaded a medical advisory panel in 2012 to recommend adding mesothelioma to the list of cancers and diseases for which firefighters and first responders should receive compensation and treatment.

Myth #2: Only men over 65-years-old are diagnosed with mesothelioma.

While it is true that nearly 80 percent of the mesothelioma cases are diagnosed in men, typically in their late 60’s to 70’s, younger men and women are also susceptible to developing the disease. Men tend to develop the cancer more often than women due to the greater presence of men in the kinds of heavy industrial jobs such as ship building, mining and automotive repair where asbestos was prevalent.

However, the men who worked around asbestos, and brought the fibers home on their clothing, shoes and in their hair, may have inadvertently exposed their children and spouses to the deadly toxin leading to second-hand exposure. Inhalation of the toxic asbestos fibers through second-hand exposure can lead to mesothelioma. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reported that there is no safe level of asbestos exposure.

According to researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, women tend to develop mesothelioma at an earlier age than men, but they live longer with the disease after surgery.

One of the featured patients on MesotheliomaHelp.org, Jan Egerton of England, was diagnosed with mesothelioma at the age of 44. She has developed a large network of mesothelioma survivors and finds that many of them are women and younger men. In an email to Nancy Meredith she said, “Mesothelioma is without a doubt no longer an old man’s disease.”

Myth # 3: Pleural mesothelioma is just another lung cancer caused by smoking.

Unlike many other predominantly pulmonary-related cancers, cigarette smoking has no known causative affect on pleural mesothelioma incidence. Mesothelioma is caused by past exposure to asbestos. As a result, mesothelioma is an entirely preventable disease. Unfortunately, many people that develop mesothelioma were unaware of the dangers of asbestos in the workplace.

Even small amounts of asbestos and infrequent exposure can create a risk for contracting mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer or other asbestos-related diseases. However, according to Carbone, workers in trades where they experienced higher levels of asbestos exposure may also experience a shorter latency time compared to those exposed to less asbestos.

Some researchers report that patients who have previously been exposed to asbestos and also smoke may have a higher risk of developing the cancer. In addition, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, smoking may reduce the effectiveness of cancer treatment. Patients who continue to smoke and undergo surgery may have an increased risk of heart and lung complications, including increased problems from general anesthesia.

For Patients With Mesothelioma, Thirteen Relevant Facts About Asbestos Disease in 2013

A group of nine doctors from New York University, the University of Hawaii and other research universities who specialize in treating mesothelioma patients discussed facts, theories and myths about mesothelioma in an article in the Journal of Cell Physiology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Their findings, made available online in January 2013, are well worth revisiting at the outset of the new year.

Here are 13 bold points from the article:

More than 20 million people in the United States are at risk of developing malignant mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure.
The duration and intensity of an individual’s exposure to asbestos are important variables affecting the likelihood of development of asbestos disease.
All studies agree that the incidence of mesothelioma among men has continued to rise during the last five decades, while the incidence among women has remained relatively flat. More than 100,000 U.S. citizens are expected to die of mesothelioma during the next 40 years.
The development of mesothelioma is related to the chronic inflammatory process caused by the presence of microscopic asbestos fibers in the chest cavity.
Development of malignant mesothelioma has been associated with commercial use of asbestos in the early and mid 20^th century. Prior to the 1950s, malignant mesothelioma tumors were extremely rare.
Today, malignant mesothelioma is responsible for approximately 2,500 to 3,000 deaths per year in the United States and approximately 5,000 deaths in Western Europe.
It’s a myth that asbestos has been banned in commercial products in the United States. Countries in the European Union have banned asbestos use, but not the U.S. The continued import of products containing asbestos in the U.S. and potential exposure to asbestos in place means workers exposed to the mineral fibers will continue to be at risk of developing mesothelioma.
It’s a myth that malignant mesothelioma will soon disappear because of reduced use of the product. The rate of malignant mesothelioma has remained constant since 1994 and is increasing in some countries.
It’s a myth that mesothelioma is a slow growing tumor. Mesothelioma grows aggressively once the cancer develops and most likely produces clinical symptoms within a few years. There is a long latency period of 20 to 70 years between initial exposure to asbestos fibers and the development of mesothelioma. The distinction is important. The latency period appears to be influenced by the amount of exposure. Workers in trades with higher exposure to asbestos may have shorter latency periods before the cancer develops.
Due to the long latency period, researchers estimate that mesothelioma mortality rates will continue to increase 5 to 10 percent per year in most industrialized countries for the next two to three decades despite efforts to get rid of asbestos. In the U.S, the number of mesothelioma deaths is likely to exceed 3,000 per year. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of deaths due to mesothelioma in the U.S. are misattributed to other causes.
A mesothelioma patient’s survival is influenced by the stage of the cancer upon treatment.
Stage I is the localized cancer while Stage IV describes advanced cancer that has spread beyond the point of origin. Among 663 patients who underwent surgical procedures for mesothelioma from the 1990 through 2006, the median survival was:
Stage I mesothelioma — 38 months median survival
Stage II mesothelioma—19 months
Stage III mesothelioma—11 months
Stage IV mesothelioma—7 months
It’s expected that development of reliable blood tests that can lead to earlier detection of mesothelioma before it has advanced to stage III or IV will increase the percentage of patients who are candidates for surgery and increase overall survival.

New Drugs Rally Immune System to Fight Cancer

For many years, cancer researchers have questioned why the immune system doesn’t react to cancer cells as invaders and attack them. A deepening understanding of genetic drivers of disease reveals that the cancerous tumors take over the brake control on the immune system.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal underscores the advances being made in new drugs that release the brake and allow the immune system to fight various forms of cancer, including cancers associated with asbestos exposure.

For Tom Stutz, a 72-year-old retired lawyer in California, taking each breath was a struggle and even doing simple tasks such as eating a meal required help as cancer advanced in his lungs and liver. In April, Stutz, who was confined to a wheelchair, began taking an experimental drug known as MK-3475 that reactivated his immune system to fight cancer. Today, Mr. Stutz is walking 3.5 miles a day, has parked his wheelchair, and reports feeling terrific, according to The Wall Street Journal article about innovative medical treatments. Doctors informed Mr. Stutz in the fall that his tumors had shrunk by 65 percent.

MK-3475, which has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is under development by Merck & Co. It is among a class of drugs known as PD-1 inhibitors. The drugs disrupt the ability of cancer to hijack the immune system and boosts the immune response to certain cancers. In testing the drug on patients with metastatic melanoma, researchers reported in November that about 9 percent of patients who took the drug has no observable cancer after 12 weeks while half of the study participants had tumor shrinkage.

Merck is currently recruiting cancer patients to participate in clinical trials to study the safety and tolerability of the drug to treat several forms of cancer including non-small cell lung cancer, one of the cancers associated with asbestos exposure. You can find contact information about the clinical trial here.

Mesothelioma Doctors Contribute Knowledge To Medical Journals

Science Shows Empathy from Doctors Can Lead to Happier, Healthier Mesothelioma Patients

In an article posted earlier this month, it was noted that medical providers in the UK are encouraged to be cognizant of the impact their words can have on their patients. When telling a patient of his newly-diagnosed mesothelioma, for example, the doctors are encouraged to walk in their mesothelioma patient’s shoes to understand the repercussions their words could have. Now, researchers report empathy from physicians can lead to “happier patients with better health outcomes.”

It is well known in the medical community that when a mesothelioma patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being are all addressed during treatment, the person’s quality of life is improved, which in turn, improves the response to their treatments. In effect, focusing on the power of the mind-body connection can be beneficial to the patient.

Researchers from Michigan State University can now back this up through a small scientific study of patients after discussions with doctors. They found that “a doctor-patient relationship built on trust and empathy doesn’t just put patients at ease — it actually changes the brain’s response to stress and increases pain tolerance.”

The research team, led by Issidoros Sarinopoulos, professor of radiology at MSU, randomly assigned patients to doctor-patient interviews that were either patient-centered or clinical focused. Each patient was then given a post-interview questionnaire and an MRI scan along with a series of mild electric shocks.

When doctors spoke with patients taking a patient-focused approach allowing the patients to speak freely about their lifestyle and other psychological and social factors affecting their health, the patients reported greater satisfaction and confidence in their doctor in the questionnaire than did their counterparts who had a clinical discussion with their doctor. In addition, during the MRI scan where the patient-focused group was subjected to discomfort through the shocks, the researchers found less activity in the part of their brains that makes people aware of pain.

“Medicine has for too long focused just on the physical dimensions of the patient,” said Robert Smith, professor of medicine at MSU who co-authored the paper. “Those clinical questions are important and necessary, but we’re trying to demonstrate that when you let patients tell their story in an unfettered way, you get more satisfied patients who end up healthier.”

The study was published in the journal Patient Education and Counseling.

Mesothelioma Patients Take the Time to Enjoy the Simple Pleasures of the Holiday

Today, many people across the country are celebrating the holiday season with family and friends. Mesothelioma patients and their families are more than likely taking a little extra time to appreciate the simple pleasures of the day. Whether it is enjoying the lights of the season, a light snow falling, a fire in the fireplace or the bite of a delicious cookie, taking the time to “smell the roses” can ease some of the stress of the season.

Although, when undergoing treatment for mesothelioma, the appointments don’t stop during the holiday season, patients that take the time to forget about their disease for just a day will feel a little more relaxed when they return to their treatment routine.

If you have a friend or a loved one suffering from a serious illness, consider taking the time to send a hand-written card, deliver a homemade treat or simply stop by for a short visit to let them know you are thinking of them.

While many factors determine survival for a mesothelioma patient, such as treatment plan and overall health and fitness of the patient, physicians also believe that a positive outlook and affirming thoughts can result in the improvement in a patient’s health. Mesothelioma patients should use the holiday cheer to help raise their mood and lower their anxiety level.

Happy Holidays.

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