Mesothelioma

The risk of asbestos involves repeated and extended exposure to the material. This repeated exposure has been known to lead to diseases like asbestosis, but primarily it's known for its direct correlation with mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that involves tumors on the lining of the lungs and abdomen.

Mesothelioma is often one of the most difficult diseases to diagnose. This is due to its usually long latency period. This involves the fact that symptoms often don't develop for decades after an original exposure to asbestos, sometimes up to 50 years. Once symptoms start to come around, many victims are elderly, and are unaware of their own risk to mesothelioma. The difficulty in diagnosing these victims and their common elderly ages make mesothelioma life expectancy rather short. The average life span following diagnosis usually only averages between eight and 14 months.

The symptoms that are common after the latency period include things that can also be confused with simple elderly age and problems. Shortness of breath, coughing, pain the ribs, fatigue, weight loss, and diarrhea are all common examples of mesothelioma symptoms. It's all too important that any sign of a combination of these symptoms be taken in complete caution. Usual screening for marine engineers should be explored regularly and definitely in the case that these symptoms arise. With an earlier diagnosis, a patient will stand to be in a great situation to fight the cancer.

Asbestos' Impact Today

Because mesothelioma has such a large latency period between original exposure and the development of symptoms, this makes current times very crucial. Asbestos use in ships continued through the mid 1900's as its major use spanned during World War II and afterwards. The sometimes 50 year long latency period would lead up to right now as major risk period for marine engineers.

In a 2008 study entitled "Asbestos and Ship-Building: Fatal Consequences" by John Hedley-Whyte and Debra R. Milamed, the connections between ship builders, asbestos, and mesothelioma were abridged. The study showed that workers in ships held a death rate from mesothelioma that was over 15 times higher than all other occupations. Many of these deaths that were tracked by the study related back to the major shipyards that covered the eastern coast of the United States.

This 2008 study also shelled out numbers of mesothelioma deaths that have been common throughout the first decade of the 21st century in Europe and the US. While the US averaged nearly 4000 deaths a year, the Great Britain totaled about 1600 a year. It also showed that the average age at death was around 73 years old.

Today, much of the risk with ships and asbestos involves the ship breaking industry. Many countries like the US are sending their older vessels (often World War II era) to countries like India and Bangladesh to be destroyed. The workers in these countries are at risk of major asbestos exposure because the asbestos aren't cleaned away from these older ships at all.

Read also Marine Engineers and Cancer ( US ) or
Mesothelioma Incidence ib Euroipe ( UK / EU ).

Author and © Rachel Jones

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