Category: Advocacy
New British Research Suggests Link Between Asbestos and Heart Disease, Stroke
A new study of British workers finds that asbestos may cause other serious illnesses in addition to mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that produces tumors in the lining of the lung.
The study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, reports that workers in Great Britain exposed to asbestos in the workplace are more likely to die from heart disease than people in the general population.
Asbestos is recognized as a cause of serious respiratory disease in humans, including asbestosis, a scarring of lung, lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of lining of the lungs and abdomen. But it hasn’t been established whether asbestos exposure is a risk factor in cardiovascular disease.
But it’s well established that inhaling or swallowing asbestos causes inflammation. And inflammatory processes are involved in the development of cardiovascular disease, which includes diseases of the heart and blood vessels.
So researchers, led by Anne-Helen Harding of Britain’s Health and Safety Laboratory, analyzed the presence of cardiovascular disease and death rates among nearly 100,000 asbestos workers between 1971 and 2005. Many of the workers had jobs that involved asbestos removal.
The researchers reported a significantly higher number of deaths from ischemic heart disease and stroke among asbestos workers than the general population. Male asbestos workers were 63 percent more likely to die of a stroke and 39 percent more likely to die of heart disease.
The researchers also observed a correlation between the length of exposure to asbestos and the likelihood of developing ischemic heart disease, a reduced blood supply in the heart muscle. The researchers said the findings provide some evidence that workplace asbestos exposure contributes to heart disease in exposed workers.
Asbestos exposure is the leading cause of work-related deaths in Great Britain, accounting for approximately 4,000 deaths per year, according to the Health and Safety Executive, a British government agency that oversees workplace safety. In the United States, approximately, 2,500 to 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma in the United States each year and similar numbers of people die of mesothelioma each year. Symptoms of asbestos disease typically take 20 years to 40 years to appear, so workers exposed in 1970s may only recently have begun noticing symptoms such as shortness of breath, pain beneath the ribs and a persistent cough.
Mesothelioma Patient Urges Registry of Buildings with Asbestos
A Canadian food inspector who has been diagnosed with mesothelioma wants the Canadian government to establish a registry of buildings containing asbestos to warn others of the workplace hazard. Once widely used as a building material, asbestos is associated with serious respiratory diseases including asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the chest and abdominal cavities.
Howard Willems, 59, a federal food inspector for more than 30 years, contracted mesothelioma while inspecting a number of older food plants in Saskatchewan, according to a recent report by the CBC, Canada’a national news network.
Willems contends that everyone has a right to know when they enter a workplace that it is safe. He said he now realizes that he was exposed to asbestos when he inspected food plants while they were undergoing renovation. He said there were no warning labels that asbestos was harmful.
Workplace asbestos exposure is common among people diagnosed with mesothelioma, including construction workers exposed during remodeling and demolition of older buildings. Approximately, 2,500 to 3,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year and most are retired workers and veterans who breathed asbestos fibers in a workplace. In Canada, approximately 350 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma annually, according to the Canadian Medical Association. The numbers have increased significantly in the last two decades.
The Canadian Cancer Society also has called on the federal and provincial governments to maintain a public registry of buildings that contain asbestos. A registry would help ensure that asbestos is properly removed from them by trained workers. The government has not responded.
Willems had one diseased lung removed in 2011 and is undergoing monitoring of his remaining lung. Typically, mesothelioma symptoms appear 20 years to 40 years after exposure to asbestos. But once it appears, the cancer is aggressive and difficult to treat.
Willems said the Canadian provincial and federal governments had been aware of the harm caused by asbestos for years and had been negligent in allowing continued exposure to the cancer-causing material. He said the government had relied on questionable scientific studies to justify continued production and export of asbestos. Canada is a leading exporter of asbestos, primarily to developing nations, despite calls by many medical and health organizations for Canada to cease asbestos exports.
Enlisting the Body’s Immune System to Fight Mesothelioma and Asbestos Disease
Mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung and abdomen, suppresses the normal immune system response designed to ward off disease. Scientists have been trying to understand the mechanics of the immune suppression process to develop more effective therapies for mesothelioma, an aggressive form of cancer.
One promising treatment is immunotherapy that enlists the body’s natural defense system to shrink cancerous tumors. A number of immunotherapies are currently being tested in clinical trials. Mesothelioma is among the cancers that appear to be responsive to immunotherapy, researchers say. But the failure of immunotherapies to stop the growth of malignant mesothelioma tumors suggests that the immune suppression process is complex and involves multiple targets.
In an article published in the journal Immunology and Cell Biology, researchers at Harvard University investigate the roles of three factors affecting the immune response: regulatory T cells, intratumoural transforming growth factor (TGF)-â and the protein cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4, which plays a regulatory role in the immune system.
The researchers say that immunotherapy treatments targeting multiple regulators simultaneously appear to be more effective than focusing on one regulator protein that is suppressing immune response. They report that a triple treatment involving all three immune system factors led to long-term shrinkage of tumors and residual resistance to cancer cells if tumors reappeared.
“These data suggest that clinical application of immunotherapies against tumors may be improved by simultaneously targeting multiple mechanisms of immune suppression,” said lead investigator Haydn T. Kissick in a summary of the research.
Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos fibers. When a person breathes asbestos dust, the microscopic asbestos fibers can penetrate deep in the lungs and cause inflammation and eventually disease.
Approximately 2,500 to 3,000 people a year in the United States receive a diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma. Many victims of mesothelioma are older workers, retired workers and veterans who were exposed to asbestos decades ago in a workplace. The symptoms of mesothelioma typically take 20 years to 40 years to appear, but the disease is aggressive once it appears.
Symposium To Focus on Lung-Sparing Therapies for Malignant Mesothelioma Patients
Medical doctors and researchers will gather on May 12 in Santa Monica, California for the 2nd Annual International Symposium on Lung-Sparing Therapies for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer of the lining of the lung and abdominal cavity caused by asbestos exposure.
Approximately, 2,500 to 3,000 people are diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma in the United States each year. The incidence of mesothelioma has increased in recent decades.
The symposium promotes less invasive alternatives to the radical surgery that involves extensive removal of tissue and organs in mesothelioma patients and prolonged recoveries. Dr. Robert Cameron, director of the UCLA Mesothelioma Comprehensive Research Program and an advocate of lung sparing therapies, will lead the symposium.
The radical surgery attempted on some mesothelioma patients is known as extrapleural pneumonectomy. Also known as EPP, extrapleural pneumonectomy is a procedure that involves removal of a lung, the lining of the lung, the diaphragm and the lining around the heart.
Participants at the first symposium last year reviewed the Mesothelioma and Radical Surgery (MARS) trail conducted in Great Britain from 2006 to 2009. The U.K. Mesothelioma and Radical Surgery trial tracked 50 patients—24 who underwent extrapleural pneumonectomy and 26 mesothelioma patients who did not undergo radical surgery. According to the results, 52 percent of the mesothelioma patients who underwent radical surgery lived 12 months, compared to 73 percent of the patients who had treatment that did not involve removal of a lung.
Participants concluded that the study offered no evidence that extrapleural pneumonectomy offered an advantage to patients over less invasive surgery. They said mesothelioma patients should no longer be subjected to debilitating lung-removing surgery.
The symposium is part of an ongoing debate within the medical community about mesothelioma treatment options and the value of radical surgery for mesothelioma patients. Some physicians advocate highly invasive surgeries for mesothelioma patients with less advanced cancer who are healthy enough to withstand the operation. Other doctors say that lung sparing pleurectomy/decortication procedures are effective and less debilitating.
The distinguished faculty will include experts from Houston, San Francisco, New York and as far away as South Africa.
“This symposium brings the best scientific and medical minds together to advance the treatment of mesothelioma,” Dr. Cameron said in a prepared statement. “Research and practice over the past several years have continued to evolve, working to improve cancer outcomes without unnecessarily sacrificing the affected lung. Clearly, it is best for the patient to treat mesothelioma as a chronic illness while preserving the function of both lungs.”
Many workers and veterans who develop mesothelioma were exposed to asbestos dust on the job, though disease symptoms typically take 20 years to 40 years to be diagnosed.
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Families of Asbestos Workers At Risk of Mesothelioma From Exposure At Home
A report in a British newspaper describes the terrible legacy of asbestos disease that families of asbestos workers face. Asbestos is associated with scarring of the lungs and mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer of the lining of the lung and abdomen.
According to a Jan. 17 article in the Yorkshire Post, eight adult children of Kora Leah, who was a foreman at Cape Asbestos in Hebben Bridge, Yorkshire, have been diagnosed with asbestos-related disease. The family has lost two siblings in recent months to mesothelioma.
When Marjorie King, one of Leah’s daughters died last July at age 67, a tumor was found on her right lung and asbestos particles were discovered in her lung tissue. Deputy Coroner Paul Marks concluded after an inquest that she died of mesothelioma.
Her sister, Maureen McGeogh, 73, of West Yorkshire, recalled that she and her siblings would play with their father when he returned home from work with his clothes still covered in asbestos dust. “I remember my mother shaking his overalls and dust going everywhere,” McGeogh recalled.
She said the children sometimes accompanied their father to work on Sunday and would play in the piles of dust. They were unaware of the danger of the asbestos dust.
Of the other siblings, Gerald, 78, has pleural plaques and emphysema while Cedric, 74, Rosalind, 71, Raymond, 69 and Glynn, 64, all have scarred lungs. Because of their secondhand exposure to asbestos they are at higher risk of developing mesothelioma.
The father Kora Leah died of lung cancer in 1958, 10 years after leaving Cape Asbestos, according to the newspaper.
According to the National Cancer Institute, there is evidence that family members of workers heavily exposed to asbestos face an increased risk of developing mesothelioma. The risk results from exposure to asbestos brought into the home on clothing, shoes, skin and hair.
When asbestos fibers get inhaled, they get trapped in the lung and remain there for a long time. The symptoms of mesothelioma typically appear 30 years to 50 years after initial exposure to asbestos. Possible signs of mesothelioma include shortness of breath and pain under the rib cage, pain or tightening of the chest, and a persistent cough that gets worse over time. It’s important to check with a doctor if you develop any of these symptoms and inform the doctor of any known exposure to asbestos.
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