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Update on Mesothelioma

February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://www.chestnet.org/accp/article/chest-physician/update-mesothelioma

Update on Mesothelioma

CHEST Physician Article | 02.16.12

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an orphan disease that has been challenging researchers and clinicians since it was first recognized as a distinct disease entity in the 1960s. There are approximately 3,500 new cases of mesothelioma diagnosed yearly in the United States. Pleural mesothelioma accounts for approximately 80% of cases, peritoneal mesothelioma accounts for 10% to 15% of cases, and there are rare reports of cases originating in the pericardium, testes, and tunica vaginalis.

Asbestos exposure has been directly linked to the development of malignant mesothelioma. The male to female incidence of mesothelioma is reported as 4:1, due largely to workplace exposure to asbestos. Secondhand exposure, due to fibers brought home on clothing and non-workplace exposure during home remodeling/ repair, often leads to a diagnosis at a younger age rather than the average age of diagnosis, which is reported as 70 years…. The latency period from exposure, primarily to asbestos, to the development of disease has been reported to be between 20 and 60 years.

[Article continues at original source]

Filed Under: Medicine

Malignant pleural mesothelioma

February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://www.ajhp.org/content/69/5/377.abstract?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=6&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexacttitle=or&andorexacttitleabs=and&fulltext=asbestos&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&usestrictdates=yes&resourcetype=HWCIT&ct

Malignant pleural mesothelioma

Abstract

Purpose The etiology, diagnosis, staging, and management of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) are reviewed, with an emphasis on clinical trials of newer approaches to first-line, second-line, and adjuvant chemotherapy.

Summary In the past decade, more effective chemotherapy regimens have been developed for patients with MPM, a rapidly progressing disease linked to a history of asbestos exposure in about 70% of cases. Patients with MPM often require multimodal treatment with surgery, radiotherapy, and adjuvant or neoadjuvant (presurgical) chemotherapy. The current standard of first-line chemotherapy for MPM is cisplatin or carboplatin in combination with pemetrexed, an antifolate compound that has been shown to increase the cytotoxic effects of platinum-based drugs. In Phase II and III clinical trials, combination therapy with pemetrexed and either cisplatin or carboplatin yielded some of the highest rates of tumor response (21–41%) and overall survival (about 12–14 months) reported to date. Dual-agent neoadjuvant chemotherapy (cisplatin plus gemcitabine or pemetrexed) followed by radical surgery with or without radiotherapy has been reported to yield median survival of up to 23–29 months in small clinical trials, but larger randomized controlled studies are needed to better define the role of neoadjuvant therapy in MPM management. Other chemotherapeutic agents that have been used against MPM, with variable results, include gemcitabine, vinorelbine, taxanes, anthracyclines, and molecular-targeted agents.

Conclusion Treatment approaches for MPM include surgery, radiation, and systemic chemotherapy. MPM carries a poor prognosis, but recent studies of pemetrexed and platinum analogue combination therapies have demonstrated improved response rates over other treatments.

  • Copyright © 2012 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Medicine

400 former dockyard workers file US suits over asbestos exposure – maltatoday.com.mt

February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/400-former-dockyard-workers-file-US-suits-over-asbestos-exposure-20120220

Monday 20 February 2012 – 09:57

400 former dockyard workers file US suits over asbestos exposure

The heirs of some 400 former dockyard workers have filed individual and class action lawsuits in the United States after the death of the workers from lung cancer following exposure to asbestos.

The heirs of some 400 former dockyard workers have filed individual and class action lawsuits in the United States, seeking their right to compensation in damages for occupational exposures to asbestos products while working – among other places – on US warships.

Most of the workers have died of malignant mesothelioma caused by the direct and proximate result of occupational exposures to asbestos products while working on US warships while anchored at the then HM Drydocks, which later became the Malta Drydocks.

The cases were filed at the US Bankruptcy Court of New York against a number of companies which provided the asbestos materials for the US warships while in dock. The companies, which have since been declared bankrupt, are still liable for damages under US law.

But the heirs are now challenging the US courts to order a trust – set up to compensate those who became ill from asbestos exposure – to include them after it wrongly concluded that their exposure occurred off US soil.

[Article continues at original source]

Filed Under: Law

Sarnia widow fights to keep asbestos mine closed

February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://www.theobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3475584

Sarnia widow fights to keep asbestos mine closed

By PAUL MORDEN, The Observer

February 17, 2012

A decade and a half after Chemical Valley worker Harry Buist died of asbestos-caused mesothelioma, his widow is still fighting to end Canada’s role in the mineral’s mining and sale.

Sarnia’s Margaret Buist, 73, took her campaign to Ottawa this week to join two NDP MPs at a press conference opposing plans to reopen a mine in Asbestos, Que.

Montreal-based asbestos trader Balit Chadha is behind the project and Quebec Premier Jean Charest said he would grant a $58-million government loan to support it, but the deal has not been approved yet.

Canada’s last asbestos mine closed in Quebec due to financial and environmental issues — marking the end of a 130-year-old industry.

Chadha is hopeful the project will be given the green light following a third-party safety audit. His company has already started reviewing resumes to hire 60 workers.

Buist, a member of Victims of Chemical Valley and an activist in the fight against asbestos, had several thousand “asbestos kills” postcards printed to lobby the Quebec government.

Her husband was just 58 when he died of the painful disease caused by exposure to asbestos, a building material once widely used in Chemical Valley.

[Article continues at original source]

Filed Under: Exposure, Facts

Role of stopping exposure and recent exposure to asbestos in the risk of mesothelioma

February 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://journals.lww.com/eurjcancerprev/Abstract/publishahead/Role_of_stopping_exposure_and_recent_exposure_to.99765.aspx


European Journal of Cancer Prevention

doi: 10.1097/CEJ.0b013e32834dbc56

Role of stopping exposure and recent exposure to asbestos in the risk of mesothelioma

La Vecchia, Carlo; Boffetta, Paolo

Abstract

The model of asbestos-related mesothelioma implies that the time since first exposure (latency) is the key determinant of subsequent risk. The role of recent exposure or stopping asbestos exposure, if any, is, however, open to discussion. A literature review was conducted to the end of 2010. In a cohort of 1966 Italian textile workers, the standardized mortality ratio, on the basis of 68 deaths from mesothelioma, was 6627 for workers employed only under the age of 30 years, 8019 for those employed both under the age of 30 years and at the age of 30-39 years, and 5891 for those employed both under the age of 30 years and at the age of 40 years or more. In a cohort of Italian asbestos cement workers, including 135 deaths from pleural cancer, compared with workers who had stopped exposure for 3-15 years, the relative risk (RR) was similar for those still employed (RR=0.67) and for those who had stopped for 30 years or more (RR=0.65). In a British case-control study, including 622 cases of mesothelioma and 1420 population controls, the RR substantially increased with increasing duration of exposure under the age of 30 years, but not with exposure at the age of more than 30 years. In the Great Britain Asbestos Workers Survey, including 649 deaths from mesothelioma compared with workers who were still employed and or had stopped for less than 10 years, the multivariate RRs were 0.90 10-20 years after stopping exposure and 0.99 both 20-30 and more than 30 years after stopping. There is consistent evidence showing that, for workers exposed in the distant past, the risk of mesothelioma is not appreciably modified by subsequent exposures, and that stopping exposure does not materially modify the subsequent risk of mesothelioma.

(C) 2012 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.

Filed Under: Exposure, Medicine

Role of stopping exposure and recent exposure to asbestos in the risk of mesothelioma

February 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://journals.lww.com/eurjcancerprev/Abstract/publishahead/Role_of_stopping_exposure_and_recent_exposure_to.99765.aspx


European Journal of Cancer Prevention

doi: 10.1097/CEJ.0b013e32834dbc56

Role of stopping exposure and recent exposure to asbestos in the risk of mesothelioma

La Vecchia, Carlo; Boffetta, Paolo

Abstract

The model of asbestos-related mesothelioma implies that the time since first exposure (latency) is the key determinant of subsequent risk. The role of recent exposure or stopping asbestos exposure, if any, is, however, open to discussion. A literature review was conducted to the end of 2010. In a cohort of 1966 Italian textile workers, the standardized mortality ratio, on the basis of 68 deaths from mesothelioma, was 6627 for workers employed only under the age of 30 years, 8019 for those employed both under the age of 30 years and at the age of 30-39 years, and 5891 for those employed both under the age of 30 years and at the age of 40 years or more. In a cohort of Italian asbestos cement workers, including 135 deaths from pleural cancer, compared with workers who had stopped exposure for 3-15 years, the relative risk (RR) was similar for those still employed (RR=0.67) and for those who had stopped for 30 years or more (RR=0.65). In a British case-control study, including 622 cases of mesothelioma and 1420 population controls, the RR substantially increased with increasing duration of exposure under the age of 30 years, but not with exposure at the age of more than 30 years. In the Great Britain Asbestos Workers Survey, including 649 deaths from mesothelioma compared with workers who were still employed and or had stopped for less than 10 years, the multivariate RRs were 0.90 10-20 years after stopping exposure and 0.99 both 20-30 and more than 30 years after stopping. There is consistent evidence showing that, for workers exposed in the distant past, the risk of mesothelioma is not appreciably modified by subsequent exposures, and that stopping exposure does not materially modify the subsequent risk of mesothelioma.

(C) 2012 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.

Filed Under: Exposure, Medicine

Ex-Naval Ship Workers Sue Over Asbestos Claims

February 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://blogs.wsj.com/bankruptcy/2012/02/15/ex-naval-ship-workers-sue-over-asbestos-claims

  • February 15, 2012, 3:43 PM

Ex-Naval Ship Workers Sue Over Asbestos Claims

By Jacqueline Palank

Wall Street Journal Bankruptcy Blog

Several people seeking compensation for diseases and death due to asbestos exposure on U.S. naval ships say those responsible for issuing payment are unfairly discriminating against them because they aren’t U.S. citizens.

The allegations form the basis for a newly filed lawsuit related to the 1982 bankruptcy of Johns Manville Corp., a manufacturer of building products that used Chapter 11 to resolve a wave of litigation by people claiming to have become ill from the asbestos in its products.

The latest suit, filed Tuesday in Manhattan bankruptcy court, concerns asbestos-related illnesses contracted by men from England, Greece and Malta who worked on active-duty U.S. warships docked in their home countries as well as in places like Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor and Virginia’s Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Some of the men died from their illnesses, which include malignant mesothelioma, asbestosis and gastrointestinal cancer.

Each man (or his representative) filed a claim against a trust set up to compensate those who became ill from Johns Manville’s products. The men say their illnesses resulted from their exposure to the asbestos dust and fibers contained in Johns Manville products found in the U.S. naval ships’ boiler rooms, engine rooms and other confined areas. They say the trust has wrongly concluded that their exposure occurred off U.S. soil.

[Article continues at original source]

Filed Under: Claims, Lawsuits

Asbestos deaths bring 16-year sentence

February 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/02/13/8135/asbestos-deaths-bring-16-year-sentence

Asbestos deaths bring 16-year sentence

International conglomerate linked to 3,000 deaths

By Jim Morris

February 13, 2012

In a case followed around the world, two former executives of a Swiss building-products conglomerate were convicted in Italy Monday of causing the asbestos-related deaths of more than 3,000 people.

Each defendant — Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, former owner of the Eternit conglomerate, and Belgian baron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne, a major shareholder in the firm — was sentenced to 16 years in prison on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Schmidheiny, 64, and de Cartier, 90, were accused of exposing workers at four Italian asbestos cement factories — as well as people who lived near the plants — to asbestos fibers, which can cause deadly diseases such as mesothelioma, a virulent cancer that attacks the lining of the lung or abdominal cavity.

In 2010, the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the BBC jointly produced an investigation into the global asbestos trade, “Dangers in the Dust”, which revealed the tactics used by makers of asbestos building materials to market their products in developing nations despite overwhelming evidence of the fire-resistant mineral’s lethality.

Several activists said that Monday’s verdict in Turin, Italy, which came after a two-year trial before a three-judge panel, could send a powerful message to corporate officials who fail to control toxic exposures. The World Health Organization estimates that 125 million people are exposed to asbestos on the job and more than 100,000 die each year of mesothelioma, lung cancer or asbestosis.

[Article continues at original source]

Filed Under: Exposure, Facts, Law

N.C. couple names 73 defendants in asbestos case

February 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://www.wvrecord.com/news/241783-n.c.-couple-names-73-defendants-in-asbestos-case

N.C. couple names 73 defendants in asbestos case

2/13/2012 8:33 AM

By Kyla Asbury -Kanawha Bureau

CHARLESTON — A Stanley, N.C., couple is suing 73 companies they claim are responsible for a mesothelioma diagnosis.

On Aug. 13, 2010, Sidney William Mauney was diagnosed with mesothelioma, according to a complaint filed Jan. 23 in Kanawha Circuit Court.

Mauney claims he was exposed to asbestos and/or asbestos-containing products during his employment as an insulator from 1956 until 1993.

The defendants knew or should have known that exposure to asbestos could cause harm to Mauney, according to the suit….

The 73 defendants named in the suit are 3M Company; A.O. Smith Corporation; A.W. Chesterton Company; Air & Liquid Systems Corporation; American Electric Power; American Electric Power Service Corporation; Appalachian Power Company; Bechtel Corporation; Brand Insulations, Inc.; Burlington Industries, Inc.; BW IP, Inc.; Carolina Power & Light Company; Carrier Corporation; Catalytic Construction Company; Certainteed Corporation; Cleaver-Brooks, Inc.; Crane Co.; Crown, Cork & Seal USA, Inc.; Dravo Corporation; Eaton Electrical, Inc.; F.B. Wright; Fluor Corporation; Flowserve US Inc., individually and as successor to Edward Valves Inc. and Nordstrom Valves, Inc.; Flowservc US, Inc. f/k/a Durco International, Inc.; Flowservc US, Inc. f/k/a Flowserve FSD Corporation; Fluor Enterprises, Inc.; FMC Corporation; Gordon Gasket & Packing Co.; Goulds Pumps, Inc.; Greene Tweed & Company; Grinnell, LLC; Hercules, Inc.; Honeywell, Inc.; I.U. North America, Inc.; IMO Industries, Inc.; Industrial Holdings Corporation; ITT Corporation; John Crane, Inc.; Lockheed Martin Corporation; McJunkin Corporation; Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; Nagle Pumps, Inc.; National Service Industries Venture, Inc.; Nitro Industrial Coverings, Inc.; O.C. Keckley Company; Oakfabco, Inc.; Ohio Valley Insulating Company, Inc.; Owens-Illinois, Inc.; PPG Industries, Inc.; Rapid American Corporation; Riley Power Inc.; Rust Constructors, Inc.; Rust Engineering & Construction, Inc.; Rust International, Inc.; Schneider Electric; Spirax Sarco, Inc.; Sterling Fluid Systems (USA), LLC; Superior Boiler Works, Inc.; Tasco Insulations, Inc.; The Gage Company; The William Powell Company; UB West Virginia, Inc.; Uniroyal, Inc.; United Conveyer Corporation; United Engineers & Constructors and Washington Group International; Viacom, Inc.; Viking Pump, Inc.; Vimasco Corporation; Warren Pumps, Inc.; Weil-McLain Company; Yarway Corporation; Zenith Pumps; and Zurn Industries, Inc.

Filed Under: Claims, Lawsuits

Building site work from decades ago caused death

February 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quoted from http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/News/Building-site-work-from-decades-ago-caused-death-13022012.htm

Burton Mail

08:00 Mon 13 Feb 2012 Written by by TIM FLETCHER

Building site work from decades ago caused death

A FORMER Burton Mail stalwart died as a result of being exposed to asbestos while working on building sites almost 40 years ago, an inquest has heard.

Andy Parker died at the age of 58 on New Year’s Eve, eight months after being diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, a cancerous tumour of the lining of the lung and chest cavity.

The inquest into his death heard Mr Parker’s illness happened as a direct result of breathing in asbestos while working as a labourer for Burton building firm Thomas Lowe and Sons in 1973 and 1974.

He worked on sites where asbestos was present, including Burton District Hospital Centre (now the Queen’s Hospital) and Paget High School, in Branston, with duties including sweeping up debris likely to have contained asbestos dust.

Speaking after the inquest, Mr Parker’s widow, Sally Parker, said her husband had been unaware of any risk to his health from his work history until his diagnosis in April.

[Article continues at original source]

Filed Under: Law
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