The Role of Asbestos in Mesothelioma Development in Nordic Countries
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The Role of Asbestos in Mesothelioma Development in Nordic Countries

ByAlex Strauss

A new study of pleural mesothelioma in Nordic countries highlights the critical role of asbestos in mesothelioma development.  Asbestos is the primary cause of mesothelioma around the world. There are many statistics on the incidence of mesothelioma in countries that use asbestos. But there is not much information on mesothelioma incidence, mortality, and survival prior to the popularity of asbestos. This makes it difficult to quantify the influence of asbestos in mesothelioma development.  Researchers from the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland and China compiled the new information using the NORDCAN cancer database. The database includes statistics on mesothelioma in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden dating back as far as the 1940s.  Their analysis, published in BMC Cancer, is a sobering reminder…

The Link Between Pleural Plaques and Mesothelioma
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The Link Between Pleural Plaques and Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Fibrous thickening of the lung lining known as pleural plaques are a good indicator of asbestos exposure but they don’t necessarily mean that a person will development mesothelioma. That is the finding of a risk analysis released by a Princeton, New Jersey-based consulting firm. The firm studied the medical literature on pleural plaques to better understand the relationship between this common asbestos exposure side effect and the development of mesothelioma, the most deadly disease associated with asbestos. Pleural plaques typically develop two or three decades after asbestos exposure. They can grow on either the outer (parietal) pleura or the inner (visceral) pleura. While they can make breathing uncomfortable as they calcify over time, pleural plaques are not cancerous and have…

Multi-Center Study Reveals “Genomic Basis” of Mesothelioma
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Multi-Center Study Reveals “Genomic Basis” of Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Doctors with the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, and the Departments of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Genome Technology at New York’s Langone Medical Center, have identified four specific genes they believe are directly linked to mesothelioma development. Scientists have long known that asbestos in the tissue can trigger genetic mutations that lead to mesothelioma. But, while past studies have focused on small sets of genes and have provided a limited view of these mutations, this new study is the first to analyze the entire gene for all possible genetic alterations. The new study involved whole exome sequencing – or a complete analysis of the DNA – on 22 malignant pleural mesothelioma patients. “Integrative analysis…

Mesothelioma Risk is Rarely Outlived
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Mesothelioma Risk is Rarely Outlived

ByAlex Strauss

If you have been exposed to asbestos, whether at work or in the home, you may never outlive your risk of developing malignant mesothelioma. That unsettling finding comes from a recently-published medical stud conducted by researchers in Australia and Italy. Mesothelioma has a particularly long latency period, meaning it is not uncommon for it to take decades for this aggressive cancer to develop. To determine if asbestos-exposed individuals can ever consider themselves out of danger, the researchers compiled and analyzed data from eight separate previous studies on the relationship between asbestos exposure and mesothelioma development. Six of the studies focused on people with occupational exposure to the deadly toxin and the remaining two included people with residential asbestos exposure. Among…