About Mesothelioma
This is an article about mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a type of cancer usually caused by exposure to asbestos. It is a relatively rare cancer and has no reliable cure.
Because data on the dangers of asbestos exposure has been available for many decades there are many law suits by people who contracted the disease due to their employment. The largest claims tend to be awarded in the USA, compared to other countries such as UK, Canada and Australia where the disease is also present.
Most individuals in the western world are now aware of the dangers of asbestos in some way, yet the law still seems to have the attitude that a company must be aware of the data and take necessary precautions, but the individuals who have the same access to the same data, are for some reason considered incapable of acting on that knowledge.
While the western world tends to be educated about asbestos danger to some degree, the developing world is usually entirely ignorant of the problem currently, and the disease is thus a huge worldwide problem which isn’t being solved overall. A typical example is the ship-breaking facility in India. Most ships use asbestos and the workers breaking ships are commonly exposed to it. There was one recent legal action to prevent a ship which had a particular asbestos risk, from being allowed to be taken to that particular facility, but overall the problem is a significant one.
The disease has symptoms which are typically so general that it is not diagnosed until the late stages because the same symptoms could be caused by a variety of other less problematic conditions. Treatment might include surgery, chemo-therapy, radiation treatment and other options, but the prognosis is usually bad. Combination treatments can be more effective than single approaches, and clinical trials provide some patients the opportunity to try new groundbreaking approaches to the disease.
This article about mesothelioma has presented some of the basic facts about the disease, which is a significant medical and legal problem worldwide. Incidence in the western world might increase until about 2016, but the developing world has in general not even started to face the problem.
An alternative spelling is Mesotheloma