Mesothelioma and ongoing research

Mesothelioma is one of the cancers where the survival rate of the victims is very less. Successful treatment is wholly dependent on how early it is diagnosed, but what makes the diagnosis difficult is the subtle nature of the symptoms in its early stages and only in the advanced stages the cancer shows up. So treating mesothelioma is mainly dependent on how early the disease is diagnosed.

 The traditional treatments have been so ineffective in treating mesothelioma and none of them were able to increase the survival rate of the victims by more than a few months. Mesothelioma research foundation of America is very focused on developing new and innovative treatments for this cancer. Some of them include

1)      New chemotherapy agents
2)      Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)
3)      Immunotherapy
4)      Gene therapy

It is good to know that research has been going in this field for treating mesothelioma. The regulation in United States has immensely helped in reducing the number of cases but countries around the world are still playing catch up game.  They are still letting people mine asbestos and affecting their lives and putting them at risk of this cancer. Science has come off ages in past couple of decades but there is still lot of things left on the table for it to conquer.
I will detail on each of the treatments mentioned above in my future postings.

Asbetos ban to be considered by Philippine senate

What is called as a late realization happened in Philippine senate. Latey they are considering the ban of asbestos which is the root cause for deadly cancer mesothelioma. There is a lot of interest around getting asbestos banned and Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), the Associated Labor Unions (ALU) and the Building and Woodworkers International (BWI) are the major support groups to put pressure on the senate to get the bill paseed in the senate.

If the bill is passed in the senate, this would be a huge win for all the victims of mesothelioma cancer and more and more countries will try to do the same by banning asbestos at work places etc which would be hoped to see a decline of asbestos and mesothelioma deaths which are now seen at 2000 to 3000 per annum. Major lawsuits have been in pursuit to get some justice for the employer negligence towards their employees by exposing them to asbestos without letting them know the harmful effects of the material. Many lawyers are making a killing on such cases.

It is said that there is not level of exposure to asbestos is considered safe and banning it is the only way to elimate asbestos related cancer called mesothelioma.ALU hopes that the bill if gets passes in the senate will be protecting Filipinos from the side effects of asbestos exposure.

Atleast this is the time where all the governments realize the importance of banning asbestos and save thousands of employees and thier families to who are at risk of asbestos exposure.

Mesothelioma - Employer Sued

Today I was going through the news articles and found there was a Woman who sued the employer on behalf of his father. Samuel Mann server the US army 3 years from 1959 to 1961 and later he worked as a mechanic at crown cork till early 1970s and later he did construction work for 7 years for Norfolk Southern Railroad.

His daughter is suing these companies for letting his father exposed to asbestos at work without prior indication. As you see, Mann had worked in asbestos related work many years ago but the effects are visible now after several 10’s of years. Mesothelioma is very hard to diagnose and the survival rate is very low among the patients.

As per other statistics, every year 2 to 3 thousand of new patients are recorded to be affected by this deadly cancer which is caused my mesothelioma.

On a whole, the patients family has to go through severe crisis but if they win the settlement cases the make against the employers, they get sometimes millions of dollars but the loss of a human is not comparable to the money they get. Hope the employers around the US make their employees know the bad effects of asbestos and they themselves can escape from costly lawsuits.

Source: http://www.asbestos.net/