Understanding Mesothelioma Symptoms

If you have been exposed to asbestos, either through your work, in a home, school, or office building, or through a spouse or parent who brought home asbestos fibers on work clothing, it pays to be vigilant for signs of asbestos diseases. The thin, spiky fibers of this toxic mineral can lodge in lung tissue and cause long-term irritation that may eventually lead to mesothelioma or other asbestos-related diseases. It can take many years – often decades – for this irritation and inflammation to lead to mesothelioma symptoms.


While researchers search for a cure for mesothelioma, the best way to improve your life expectancy if you have this form of cancer is to catch it early, when surgery or chemotherapy have the best chance to slow the progress of the disease.

As we age, it can be harder to tell the difference between normal aches and pains and signs of something more serious. Understanding mesothelioma symptoms can help you decide when you should consult your doctor and ask for testing.

 Mesothelioma Basics

Although you may not have heard of it, the mesothelium is a membrane that serves a vital function in your body. This thin lining surrounds your abdominal organs, giving them a lubricated surface so they can move. The mesothelium also protects your heart, lungs, and reproductive organs.


Malignant mesothelioma is a rare cancer, caused by exposure to asbestos, that affects this membrane. Pleural mesothelioma, is cancer of the lining around the lungs. Pericardial mesothelioma affects the sac around the heart and peritoneal mesothelioma attacks the protective lining around the organs in the abdomen. Like many cancers, mesothelioma comes in a number of different forms. Asbestos exposure is the known cause of mesothelioma.

Recognizing Mesothelioma Symptoms

Mesothelioma symptoms may be hard to recognize because, taken individually, most symptoms could have a range of other, more mundane, causes. Here are some symptoms that might be a warning sign of mesothelioma as well as other types of cancer:


    Excessive tiredness without a clear cause
    Unexplained or sudden weight loss


The warning signs for each type of mesothelioma may be slightly different. Here are some signs that you should get checked for pleural mesothelioma, which affects your lungs:


    Chest or back pain
    Difficulty breathing, short of breath
    Persistent cough, wheeziness, or hoarseness
    Coughing up blood
    Difficulty swallowing
    Fever
    Swelling in the upper body, especially around the face or arms.


In addition, if your doctor notices that you have fluid around your lungs or a blood clot in one of the arteries that supplies blood to your lungs, you might want to get checked for pleural mesothelioma. If you are experiencing some of these mesothelioma symptoms, and especially if you have been exposed to asbestos, you may want to ask your doctor to check for mesothelioma.

For peritoneal mesothelioma, which affects the lining around your abdominal organs, you may experience a somewhat different set of mesothelioma symptoms, including:

    Pain in the stomach or groin
    Swollen belly caused by excess fluid
    Difficult bowel movements or constipation
    Nausea that can’t be explained by other causes

Pericardial mesothelioma, which affects the lining around your heart, can look a lot like other heart problems. Symptoms may include:

    Chest pain
    Difficulty breathing, especially when lying on your back
    Coughing
    Tiredness
    Swelling in your abdomen
    Heart palpitations (fast, irregular heartbeat)
    Heart failure

In advanced cases of mesothelioma, you may notice some additional mesothelioma symptoms:

    Jaundice, which gives your skin and eyes a yellowish tinge
    Extreme and noticeable fluid retention or swelling
    Low blood sugar


Mesothelioma Diagnosis

If you have worked with or otherwise been exposed to asbestos, you should keep an eye on your health. If you are experiencing mesothelioma symptoms, your doctor has several tools to determine whether you are suffering from this cancer or if there is another reason you aren’t feeling up to par.

Your physician will probably start by checking your breathing and listening to your lungs. The next step may be X-rays to look for telltale signs of mesothelioma. Your doctor may want to do additional imagining such as a CT or CAT scan or an MRI. If these tests indicate that mesothelioma may be present, a tissue biopsy will be needed to make the final determination whether this rare cancer is the cause of your symptoms. In most cases, the biopsy can be done through minor, outpatient operation that requires a very small incision.

Early Detection to Help Fight Mesothelioma


No one wants to hear the bad news that they have cancer, least of all one as malicious as malignant mesothelioma. The only thing worse is not getting diagnosed. If you think you may be having mesothelioma symptoms, make sure your doctor knows your full work and medical history.

While there is no cure yet, there are treatments that can slow the growth and spread of mesothelioma, so you can have more time to spend with the people you love. If your doctor thinks you might have mesothelioma, early testing is your best chance to extend your life.

source:  .mesotheliomacircle.org

Study ties breathing problems, asthma to bone loss

NEW YORK - People with asthma-related breathing problems may be at increased risk for bone loss, according to a new study.

The study examined the records of more than 7,000 adults in Seoul, Korea, and found those with a certain characteristic of asthma had significantly lower bone density in a region of their spine than those without asthma symptoms.

The characteristic, called airway hyperresponsiveness, means the airways in the lungs are particularly sensitive, and it doesn't take much to trigger an asthma attack.

However, both men and women with airway hyperresponsiveness were still in the normal range for overall bone density, on average. And researchers couldn't say whether the asthma symptoms or the bone loss came first or what linked the two.

"Asthma could be a risk for bone loss. The degree to which their disease puts them at risk for bone loss and fractures needs to be further studied," Dr. Sonal Singh told Reuters Health.

"We should be thinking about fractures in patients with asthma," he said. "The study did make me think about the link between asthma and bone loss as I see my patients."

Singh, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, was not involved in the current research but has studied broken bones in people taking steroids for chronic obstructive lung disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 25 million Americans - or one in 12 - have asthma. The US Surgeon General in 2012 predicted that by 2020 half of Americans over age 50 could have weak bones.

For the new study, researchers led by Dr. Jae-Woo Jung of Seoul National University Medical Research Center analyzed the health records of 7,034 patients seen at their hospital.

They found average bone density was lower in the lumbar spine in the 216 people who tested positive for airway hyperresponsiveness.

The lumbar spine is the region between the ribs and the pelvis.

In addition, about 45 percent of those patients had osteopenia, or lower than normal bone density, and six percent had osteoporosis. That compared to a 30 percent rate of osteopenia and a four percent rate of osteoporosis among people without airway hyperresponsiveness, according to findings published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

The study also found a lower bone density in the lumbar spines of people who reported having been diagnosed with asthma than in people without asthma. But Singh said it was hard to know whether that was meaningful, because the researchers didn't measure asthma objectively.

Previous studies have found lower vitamin D levels among patients with asthma and related symptoms, the authors write.

They did not respond to a request for comment but speculate in the study that vitamin D deficiency might factor into bone loss among people with asthma and airway hyperresponsiveness.

The current study did not measure participants' vitamin D levels, so it can't say anything about the vitamin's link to asthma and bone loss.

Fractures are a known side effect of the systemic steroids used to treat asthma, Jung and colleagues write. Several studies have also tied inhaled steroids to decreased bone density, they note.

Steroids can decrease bone formation by stopping calcium from being absorbed. The drugs can also interfere with production of sex hormones, causing muscle weakness and raising the risk of falls and related fractures, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH also says that people with asthma may avoid calcium-rich milk and other dairy products as well as weight-bearing exercise - key ingredients for bone health.

In the new study, the researchers excluded patients who had used systemic steroid medications. But the study did not consider participants' use of inhaled steroids or other drugs for control of asthma and related symptoms.

Singh said the study prompted him to want to examine asthma and bone loss in research considering ethnicity, physical activity, vitamin D levels and use of inhaled steroids. — Reuter

source: gmanetwork.com

Saliva reveals asthmatic kids’ smoke exposure

NEW YORK - Asthmatic children who are exposed to cigarette smoke are more likely to make repeat trips to the hospital for breathing problems. But researchers say asking parents about kids' smoke exposure may not yield the most reliable information.

In a recent study, saliva revealed exposure to tobacco smoke in roughly 80 percent of children brought to the hospital for asthma or breathing problems. But only about a third of parents said their children came in contact with smoke.

What's more, finding evidence of nicotine, a chemical in tobacco, in children's saliva was a better predictor of whether they would need to come back to the hospital, compared to the information parents gave to doctors.

"We think saliva is a good and potentially useful test for assessing an important trigger for asthma," Dr. Robert Kahn, the study's senior author, told Reuters Health.

Previous research has found that being exposed to tobacco can lead to airway problems and poor asthma control among children, Kahn and his colleagues write in the journal Pediatrics.

By figuring out which children are being exposed to tobacco, doctors may be able to step in and identify and possibly eliminate the exposure, said Kahn, a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio.

For example, if a parent is still smoking cigarettes and exposing the child to smoke, doctors can offer the parent smoking cessation tools while the child is hospitalized.

For the new study, the researchers assessed data from 619 children admitted to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center for asthma or other breathing problems between August 2010 and October 2011. The children were between one and 16 years old.

During the children's first couple of days in the hospital, researchers asked their parents if the children had any exposure to tobacco—either at home, in the car or in another place the children slept. Nurses also collected blood and saliva samples from the children.

About 35 percent of parents reported their children having some tobacco exposure.

However, about 56 percent of the children's blood samples and about 80 percent of their saliva samples tested positive for cotinine, a component of nicotine that's a marker for tobacco exposure.

The difference in the results of the saliva and blood tests and the parents' reports doesn't necessarily mean the parents lied about their children's exposure to smoke.

It could also be that the researchers and doctors didn't ask enough or the right questions or that the parents didn't know their children were being exposed to smoke.

"Sometimes a parent's response to a simple question may not reflect the nuances of life," Dr. James Kreindler said.

He was not involved with the new study but is an attending pulmonologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.

One in six children in the study had to be readmitted to the hospital within a year.

Parents' reports of smoke exposure weren't tied to the likelihood of children returning to the hospital. But Kahn and his colleagues did find that children were more likely to be readmitted if their saliva or blood tested positive for cotinine.

The researchers write that saliva is an attractive testing option, because it's not hard or invasive to get a sample. It also appeared to be a more sensitive test than blood.

But Kreindler cautioned that the new results don't mean children should get tested for cotinine in the hospital.

"The test they are using to determine cotinine levels is a very sophisticated test—not one that would be available to every community hospital," he said. And the treatment for asthma wouldn't necessarily change based on whether a child was exposed to tobacco, he noted.

Kreindler said a cost analysis would also be needed to look at the expense of testing.

According to Kahn, a cost analysis would most likely follow a trial of whether smoking cessation after positive saliva tests decreased hospital readmissions among children.

"The take-home message should always be that exposure to secondhand smoke for both adults and children is a significant health risk factor—particularly for children with asthma and respiratory disorders," Kreindler said. "They should not be exposed to secondhand smoke under any circumstance." —Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com