Overview
Produced chiefly in Canada, asbestos products include brake and clutch linings, water pipe and roofing materials.
Studies have shown that asbestos particles in the air can cause mesothelioma lung cancer and lung disease asbestosis, and many former and all new uses of asbestos in the U.S. have been banned.
If you or someone you know is suffering from lung cancer and/or lung disease asbestosis, mesothelioma or other asbestos related diseases caused by exposure to asbestos or asbestos containing products, you may be eligible to file a claim.
Asbestos Injuries
Occupational exposure to asbestos is known to cause several distinct types of injuries. Generally, the longer a person is exposed to asbestos dust and the greater the intensity of this exposure, the more likely that person is to develop an asbestos-related illness.
Individual susceptibility does, however, vary greatly. In other words, some people can be exposed to a great deal of asbestos over a long period of time and never develop an asbestos-related injury. On the other extreme, some people can be exposed to very little asbestos and suffer fatal asbestos related injuries.
All asbestos-related diseases have rather long latency periods (period of time between the first exposure to asbestos and the diagnosis of an asbestos-related disease) ranging from 10 years to 30, 40 or more years.
Even though a person may have been exposed to asbestos many years ago, they can still develop asbestos-related injuries. This is because the human body can never entirely rid itself of ingested asbestos. The asbestos continues to do its damage to the lungs and other organs long after exposure has stopped.
In general, asbestos can cause two different types of illnesses:
- malignant diseases (cancers caused in organs with which ingested asbestos comes into contact)
- non-malignant diseases (scarring processes of the respiratory tract)
Asbestos Injuries include the following:
Mesothelioma
Malignant mesothelioma is a rare cancer of the lining of the lung (pleural mesothelioma) or the lining of the abdomen (peritoneal mesothelioma). The only known cause of mesothelioma in North America is exposure to asbestos.
Like the other asbestos-related diseases, mesothelioma has a long latency period (period of time between first exposure to asbestos and the diagnosis of the disease). In rare cases the latency period has been as short as 10 to 15 years after the first exposure to asbestos. Typically, however, mesothelioma occurs 20, 30, 40 or more years after the first exposure.
Unlike the other asbestos-related diseases, even low exposures to asbestos can lead to the development of malignant mesothelioma. It is not uncommon for someone to develop this cancer after only a few weeks of exposure at a summer job decades earlier or from washing clothing worn by a worker exposed to asbestos on the job. There are even cases reported in medical literature, of mesothelioma developing in people who simply lived near a site where asbestos products were used or manufactured.
The prognosis for someone diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, unfortunately, is not good. It is almost always fatal. Survival is usually limited to 12 to 18 months from the diagnosis, sometimes substantially less. There are some people, however, usually relatively young and in good health before being stricken with this disease, who have achieved long-term survival.
Lung Cancer
Lung cancer (also known as bronchogenic carcinoma) is a disease that can be caused by asbestos exposure, particularly in people who also smoked cigarettes.
In a leading study of asbestos workers conducted at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York, it was found that asbestos workers who also smoked cigarettes had a 50 to 90 times increase in lung cancer deaths when compared to people who neither smoked nor were exposed to asbestos. For non-smokers, the rate of lung cancer deaths was 5 times greater than the general population.
The Mt. Sinai study showed that asbestos exposure and the carcinogens in cigarette smoke act "synergistically" to multiply the risk for lung cancer in those people exposed to both substances.
All lung cancer cell types can be caused by asbestos. These include adenocarcinoma, bronchoalveolar, small cell, large cell, oat cell and squamous cell. Primary lung cancers caused by asbestos may occur in either lung and may be located in any of the lobes of the lung. Additionally, lung cancer can be related to asbestos exposure whether or not a person also has pulmonary asbestosis or asbestos-related pleural disease. (Although it would not be uncommon for a person to have both asbestosis and lung cancer.)
The latency period for lung cancer is quite long, ranging from 15 to 20, 30 or more years from first exposure. While lung cancer attributable to cigarette smoking (which has a similar latency period) has been well-documented, less attention has been focused on asbestos-related lung cancers. It should be noted that when a person stops smoking cigarettes, his lung cancer risk immediately begins to drop, approaching the risk of a non-smoker 10 to 15 years after quitting. For someone occupationally exposed to asbestos, however, his lung cancer risk remains high even if he stopped smoking many years before (since microscopic asbestos fibers can remain in the lungs, continuing to do damage, for a lifetime.)
The prognosis for someone diagnosed with lung cancer is often good. Particularly if it is diagnosed early, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation or some combination of these treatments can often result in complete remission and long-term survival. Additionally, modern treatments, especially chemotherapy, have far fewer side effects than they did even a few years ago. (See links below for more complete treatment options.