Sunday, October 9, 2011

Asbestos and Lung Cancer

While lung cancer isn't as specific of an asbestos-related cancer as mesothelioma, it can still be caused by inhalation of asbestos fibers. An estimated 161,840 people died of lung cancer in 2008, and this number could climb as more and more people develop the disorder even years after they were exposed to asbestos.
Asbestos was a popular substance in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries that was used in everything from vinyl floor tiles to car brake pads. Asbestos is actually fairly beneficial when utilized correctly, because it insulates against heat, flame, chemicals, and degradation. Additionally, it is flexible and has high tensile strength. Despite all these, asbestos has been mostly outlawed because it breaks down into microscopic fibers as it gets older. These fibers can become lodged in your lungs if inhaled, then they contribute to lung cancer.
Lung cancer, like mesothelioma, is like every other cancer that is caused by the spread of improperly dividing cells. Normally, your body's cells know when they should die and replace themselves, and when they should stop dividing and producing new cells. However, the cause of all cancers is cells that do not know when to stop dividing. They keep reproducing and making more cells, which exponentially increases your amount of cells. This mass growth is called a tumor.
However, while people sometimes mistakenly associate mesothelioma with lung cancer, they are not the same disorder. Mesothelioma attacks the lining of the lungs, as well as the lining of the abdomen and even testes. Lung cancer occurs when tumors proliferate throughout the inner lung tissue itself.
This type of abnormal cell growth typically arises in the epithelial cells. These are the cells that line the airways of the lungs, helping protect your breathing organ from particles that you might inhale. However, asbestos easily shreds into microscopic fibers that can get lodged in the epithelial cells and form nodules, which can grow into cancerous masses. Because epithelial cells line the bronchi and bronchioles, lung cancer is occasionally called bronchogenic carcinomas or bronchogenic cancers.
What makes cancerous growths dangerous is there ability to metastasize. This is in contrast to benign tumors, which are masses of cells that do not spread to other parts of the body. Tumors that metastasize mean that they have the ability to break off into smaller pieces, float through the blood stream, then later anchor themselves somewhere else in the body, where they settle and grow. This is what causes cancer to spread.
Because of the lungs' close contact with the bloodstream, tumors in these organs can easily spread to the rest of your body. Thus, lung cancer is an extremely deadly form of cancer. If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with asbestos-related lung cancer, you may need financial help to aid in your treatment process or make up for loss of wages. For more information, talk to an asbestos lawyer at Williams Kherkher today.
Joseph Devine


The Claim For Lung Cancer Compensation And Its Procedure

Claim for lung cancer compensation process admits a small number of phases. However, let be familiar with this term as well as process. The asbestos fibers provide pain to the lungs and thus it turns out to be the basis of scar plus coagulate of the lungs-tissues. This one reason shows the way to numerous respiratory organ connected illnesses and even cancer. The illness can increase life risk which may perhaps be a cause of death such as lung cancer. Such patients suffer Lung cancer, could claim for their medical compensation. There are a small number of websites which will help you to get some ideas and these also help out to you for taking the specific decision from first to last for the compensation claiming. The course of action comprises more than a few stages which must be followed at any rate. If you experience that you require help for getting this compensation claim then you need to go through a professional's proposals.
The initial point of the claim for lung cancer compensation process includes legal liability and in keeping with this observation, you have to draw attention to indicate that person who is accurately liable for that particular fault. An inclusive report will be taken from the particular patient and the witnesses associated with work in addition to further contacts. In severe circumstances, you also necessitate to superior engineering evidences. The difficult task among all is to find the exact people or company who or which is guilty for that situation. As well, plenteous claims can be taken on such persons or organizations those do not exist or valid in any case right now.
After that, the next point of claim for lung cancer compensation is your possibilities of winning the case which you filed to the court. After all, it will be examined whether the people or company is liable for the patients' severe situation. Subsequent to the opening inquiry and process, all the evidences will be convened like from the reports of x-rays to the reports of scans. A lawfully adequate clinical fitness report will be specially made as well as a specific in the domain of sickness would be occupied for processing the case systematically.
In the last phase of claim for lung cancer compensation procedure, the inquiry team will start to work on the sources of your claim. The legal representative, whom you engaged for fighting your case, will observe all the information that may fit with your claim over and above economic losses that took place as a consequence of the manual mistake. If you are not competent to get hold of the invested money throughout mutual understanding then the case will be fought in the court back and forth.
Vijay K Shetty, Get more information on: Lung Cancer Claim
For more information visit: Pleural Plaque Compensation


Lung Cancer Prevention - Facts You Should Know

The Steps To Lung Cancer Prevention Involve Changes To Your Lifestyle Or Location.
It is certainly no secret that there is a direct link between cigarette smoking and the development of cancer formations in the lungs, as individuals who smoke have a considerably higher chance of developing cancerous tumors in their lungs, while non-smokers who live in a smoking environment also suffer from the same fate.  With the amount of exposure in the media to the ills and evils of tobacco, it is no secret that lung cancer prevention should start with quitting a smoking habit -- or never starting one to begin with.  A smoker who quits for as little as twenty four hours experiences far greater circulation efficiency, and a smoker who quits for a month sees their risk of developing tumors cut in half.
Of course, smoking is not the end all of developing cancer, and the unfortunate reality is that countless cancer victims have never been in close contact with a cigarette in their life.  There are numerous other conditions which have even greater impact upon lung health than tobacco, most of which involve the physical location in which a patient lives or works.  Environmental conditions account for some twenty percent of cancer developments in lung tissue, with some areas producing a level of lung tumors that approaches one hundred percent.
Simple dirt in the air can be enough to irritate lung tissue to the point where basic immunities can no longer fight off cancer developments.  Air quality is lowest in high pollution areas, with few areas worse than open air mines.  Coal mines in particular produce ten times more dust in the air than normal levels, while distances of up to ten miles away can be affected.  Lung cancer prevention may involve drastic measures of moving to new areas where air pollution is lessened; major cities especially see higher rates of cancer developments in their citizens.  Simple building materials may be a cause, most notably radon gas, an invisible and scentless gas released in processed stone.  Simple tests can detect whether or not your home or business has radon gas; with nearly one in ten buildings seeping the dangerous material, it is well worth the investigation.
I for one know there's a ton of lung cancer information scattered all around the web, and I know it can be somewhat depressing to go through much of it. I have compiled all that researched so it might benefit others. I put many months of research into a useful guide. There's no charge of course and I think you'll appreciate the simplicity of it. Its at MyLungCancerGuide.com. While you are there, you'll find this article about Lung Cancer Prevention and many other very straight forward, helpful articles.

Four Stages of Lung Cancer

In order to know the kind of treatment that a cancer patient must undergo, the medical team must first identify the stage of lung cancer being experienced by the patient. Once a person undergoes the clinical staging of cancer, diagnosis is being done.
Staging is the process of describing the extent of the disease. Cancer staging is based on the pathology report coming from a series of diagnostic examinations.
One of the most common forms of diagnostic exam is bronchoscopy which uses a small device allowing the surgeon to view both lungs in order to identify how far the cancer has metastasized.
Below are the four stages of lung cancer which are evident in people who are affected with the disease.
Stage 1 Lung Cancer
Here, the cancer is still localized which means that the disease concentrates mainly on the area where it started to grow. There is absence of cancer on the adjacent lymph nodes and it has not reached any kind of metastasis to other parts of the body.
The first stage of lung cancer can be divided into two stages namely Stage IA and Stage IB.
Stage IA manifests that the tumor is sized to about three centimeters, even less and is fairly small.
Stage IB displays that the tumor will be larger than three centimeters and to be specific, it is growing within the bronchus. In this stage, the cancer may cause the lungs to partially collapse.
Stage 2
Here, the stage is divided into two: Stage IIA and Stage IIB.
In Stage IIA, the cancer is small although it is starting to spread to the adjacent lymph nodes. While in Stage IIB, the disease is at least three centimeters wherein there could either be an apparent metastasis to the lymph nodes or, instead of affecting the lymph nodes, it has spread to the surrounding tissue.
Stage 3
In Stage 3 lung cancer, it could either be IIIA or IIIB.
Stage IIIA indicates that the cancer has spread further to the lymph nodes from the lung being affected or the cancer is apparent in the nodes that is near the affected lung and has spread to the tissue surrounding it.
In Stage IIIB, the cancer will occur if there is a spread to the adjacent lymph nodes that is located on the other side of the chest or even above the clavicle or collarbone. Stage IIIB can also happen if the disease has spread to a different structure within the chest like the heart.
Stage 4
This is considered as the most advanced stage of the disease. Here, the lung cancer has affected another lung lobe or has already reached another part of the body, like the brain, aside from the inside of the chest like the stomach and even the liver.
In order to treat lung cancer, a variety of methods can be used which is just similar to the different kinds of cancers which may occur in the body, although, in order to find the appropriate treatment, one should be diagnosed first with the correct staging based on the four stages of lung cancer. Some of the treatments include surgical removal of the cancer-affected lung, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The percentage of success in treating the cancer will depend on the extent that the cancer has affected a person's lung.
Charlene J. Nuble is a healthcare professional who loves writing about health related stuffs. Click on the link to learn more about Four Stages of Lung Cancer [http://www.lung-cancer-answers.info/What-are-the-4-stages-of-lung-cancer.html]


Lung Cancer Treatment

The treatment of lung cancer depends on stage of cancer, type of cancer and the age of the patient. The general condition of the patient also have a great effect on the choice of treatment for him. For example if a person is suffering from asthma along with cancer he is not a candidate for surgery. Sometimes the side effects of the treatment are so serious that a physician prefers to treat the patient only symptomatically. For example the physician pays attention to the pain and difficult breathing rather than on the cancer itself.
There are two types of lung cancer small cell and non small cell. Small cell lung cancer is often treated by chemotherapy alone or with combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Surgery is not performed in this type of cancer as this type of cancer always spreads beyond the boundaries of the lung.
The chemotherapy is used to stop the dividing cancer cells. Chemotherapeutic drugs are always used in combinations. The disadvantage of chemotherapy is their hazardous side effects. Chemotherapeutic drugs have a effect on fast dividing cells in the body for example digestive tract and hair cells because of this we often see digestive tract disturbances and falling of hair in the patients taking chemotherapeutic drugs.
There are two types of radiation therapy which are used to treat lung cancer. First one is external and second one is internal. The external one is given in the form of radiations and internal one in the form of injections in the area around the tissue of tumor. Side effects can be redness in the area of skin which received the radiation. Difficulty in swallowing if esophagus is included in the area of radiation therapy. The radiotherapy can be used with chemotherapy or after the chemotherapy.
In the case of non small cell lung cancer surgery is the treatment of choice. Surgery is performed to remove small portion of the lung sometimes lobe and even whole lung is removed it completely depends on the stage of the disease.
Did you know that Lung Cancer can be Treated. If you want to know more about the treatment then feel free to visit Lung Cancer Treatment