A new study has suggested that thousands of constructions workers may be at risk for pleural mesothelioma even though they have not worked in areas of asbestos exposure.

The study was conducted by researchers in the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine at Umea University, in Sweden and they used male Swedish construction workers who had had medical examinations between 1971 and 1993 as their sample.

There were 367,568 workers included in the analysis with 419 cases of mesothelioma occurring between 1972 and 2009. However, only 21% of those with mesothelioma had worked with asbestos, such as those dealing with insulation. There were even more cases of mesothelioma among concrete workers and woodworkers and also painters, electricians and foremen.

Those born between 1935 and 1945 were the most likely to be diagnosed with mesothelioma, due to the lack of protection from asbestos at that time, and the long time needed before mesothelioma becomes apparent.

The report concludes that not only those with direct exposure to asbestos in the construction industry are at risk, given the occurrence of mesothelioma in a wide range of construction workers.

In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has established guidelines designed to protect asbestos workers including risk advisories, asbestos handling training and the provision of protective gear.

If you have been diagnosed with any an asbestos related disease, you may be entitled to monetary compensation. To find out how we can help you recover for your asbestos related claim, contact the Law Office of Brayton Purcell, LLP at (800) 598-0314 immediately, or contact us online for a free consultation.

Those people who were regularly exposed to asbestos are rightly concerned about the possibility of developing mesothelioma and other asbestos related health problems. However there are now more and more cases emerging of the loved ones of those who worked with asbestos also developing health issues due to asbestos. This is known as secondary exposure, for those who were not in direct contact with a dangerous environment at work, but whose family members unknowingly brought the asbestos fibers into the home.

Mesothelioma and asbestosis can take decades after exposure before symptoms appear and although it is usually associated with older people, those who grew up with parents who worked with asbestos can develop symptoms at a much earlier age.

For example, Bonham resident, Stephanie Harper, had a father who worked around asbestos and she developed a tumor linked to asbestos fibers in her lungs at the young age of 22. She suffered secondary exposure and now, aged 37, has mesothelioma and is living in pain daily.

Victims of secondhand asbestos exposure may have the right to pursue compensation and damages for the illnesses they suffered.

If you have been diagnosed with any an asbestos related disease, you may be entitled to monetary compensation. To find out how we can help you recover for your asbestos related claim, contact the Law Office of Brayton Purcell, LLP at (800) 598-0314 immediately, or contact us online for a free consultation.

Often mesothelioma patients are required to have surgery to remove tumors, parts of tumors, or parts of organs that have been affected by the disease. However, before any surgery, the patient has to have tests to discover what stage the disease is at and how large the tumor is. Knowing the stage of the disease is important in dictating what treatment should be carried out.

There are many different tests and each one depends on where the mesothelioma is located. If it is in the lung lining, pleural mesothelioma, or the heart lining, pericardial mesothelioma, then usually surgeons will make a small incision in the chest to put in a camera to look in the area, which is a procedure known as mediastinoscopy. They can also remove small pieces of tissue and fluid for analysis.

There is also a newer treatment which is even less invasive called Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) when a tube with a camera fitted and a tiny needle is passed down the throat and through the trachea to check what is happening with the airways, lungs and some of the smaller lymph nodes.

For patients with peritoneal mesothelioma, endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is often used with again a tube down the throat to look at the digestive tract.

If you have been diagnosed with any an asbestos related disease, you may be entitled to monetary compensation. To find out how we can help you recover for your asbestos related claim, contact the Law Office of Brayton Purcell, LLP  at  (800) 598-0314 immediately, or contact us online for a free consultation.

Amble, Pa. is one of the places in the United States which contains asbestos. There are piles of asbestos waste in what are now Superfund sites but many in the community are concerned as mesothelioma has on average a 40 year period between exposure and sickness.

However the University of Pennsylvania’s Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology has received a $10 million federal grant. Over the next four years, researchers will study how people have been exposed to asbestos and investigate why some people get mesothelioma and others don’t. They will be delving into whether there is a genetic reason for what for now, seems to be a lottery.

When the first of Ambler’s factories began making asbestos insulation in 1897, little was known about the harm the tiny fibers could do to the human lungs. Over time the waste piles, containing asbestos were so tall they were called the white mountains of Ambler, and children sledded down the hills on flattened cardboard boxes.

Even today, playgrounds, backyards, and businesses are less than a block away from the dirt covered piles with asbestos underneath.

In a recent analysis covering 1992 to 2008, health officials found that the Ambler zip code had 28 cases of mesothelioma rather than the expected nine for a population of its size. Hence people are anxiously awaiting the research results.

If you have been diagnosed with any an asbestos related disease, you may be entitled to monetary compensation. To find out how we can help you recover for your asbestos related claim, contact the Law Office of Brayton Purcell, LLP  at  (800) 598-0314 immediately, or contact us online for a free consultation.

Scientists at the University of Western Australia have discovered that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin and COX-2 inhibitor pain relievers like Celebrex do not appear to prevent mesothelioma, as they had hoped.

Investigators said that tests on mice and people did not support the theory that NSAIDs and Cox-2 inhibitors would prevent mesothelioma from developing or improve survival, although aspirin did appear to temporarily slow down disease development in mice, in other words the time between asbestos exposure and the first evidence of the disease.

However, disease progression was not affected by the continued taking of the drug.

Alex Strauss, Managing Editor of Surviving Mesothelioma, said it was disappointing news and although inflammation plays a role in mesothelioma development, this study suggests that it will take more than prevention of inflammation to prevent the disease.

If you have been diagnosed with any an asbestos related disease, you may be entitled to monetary compensation. To find out how we can help you recover for your asbestos related claim, contact the Law Office of Brayton Purcell, LLP  at  (800) 598-0314 immediately, or contact us online for a free consultation.

There are two main surgical options for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma which depend on where the mesothelioma is found, the patient’s overall condition, and the disease stage.

Extrapleural Pneumonectomy (EPP) removes the diseased lung and parts of the pericardium, diaphragm, and parietal pleura. The second option is a Pleurectomy/decortication which removes the pleura, the membrane surrounding the lung, and the tumors growing inside the chest cavity.

Most physicians and surgeons who treat mesothelioma patients tend to favor one kind of surgery over another, and it now appears that the current trend is to spare the lung, even for patients who would have been referred for EPP a few years ago.  Those having the Pleurectomy surgery tend to have lower mortality rates and fewer complications than EPP, and new approaches in radiation therapy, provide more opportunities to study and treat mesothelioma patients with both lungs in place.

Some patients will benefit from palliative surgery that relieves painful or uncomfortable symptoms but will not necessarily halt the disease such as draining the fluid that collects around the lungs and causes discomfort and breathing problems.

If you have been diagnosed with any an asbestos related disease, you may be entitled to monetary compensation. To find out how we can help you recover for your asbestos related claim, contact the Law Office of Brayton Purcell, LLP  at  (800) 598-0314 immediately, or contact us online for a free consultation.