Introduction
Pleural mesothelioma is a medical term for cancer in the chest cavity after several years of breathing in asbestos. It affects the pleura, i.e. the lung skin, and describes a mostly malignant tumor of the cell layer lining the chest cavity. It is the most common type of cancer caused by asbestos damage in the lungs. Unfortunately, it is a particularly aggressive type of cancer, which kills more than 1000 people a year in Germany.
Causes
Just 1-2 years of exposure to asbestos is enough to cause cancer decades later. The small asbestos fibers are deposited in the lungs and cannot be broken down. However, over time they can migrate into the lung membrane.
In addition, these asbestos fibers cause irritation and inflammation on the spot. This leads to the remodelling of cells in the tissue and can ultimately cause a genetic change with carcinogenesis due to the constant remodelling. In 9 out of 10 cases of pleural mesothelioma, the cause is damage caused by asbestos.
The mesothelioma can also be preceded by asbestosis, an occupational disease of the lungs caused by asbestos exposure. Affected patients show shortness of breath during movement and coughing with sputum. It does not have to be only people who have dealt with asbestos at work. Also, for example, the wives of these men who had to wash clothes contaminated with asbestos can suffer from the consequences years later.
Symptoms
Since pleural mesothelioma is a cancerous disease, it also shows the typical symptoms of a malignant change in the body. These include a reduction in general condition, weakness, fatigue, night sweats, weight loss and fever. Typical symptoms of pleural mesothelioma are also shortness of breath, breathing problems, chest pain or difficulty swallowing.
Not infrequently, persistent coughing without sputum or coughing up blood may occur. In addition, the patient may complain of pain in the back or abdomen, show water retention in the limbs, and even swollen lymph nodes in the chest area may be palpable. At the doctor’s office, the clinical examination often shows an effusion in the chest cavity with reduced breathing sound.
Patients also frequently report pain when breathing. The lung boundaries that follow breathing in healthy people are now immobile. This is mainly due to the rapid growth of the malignant tumor, which causes adhesions of the lung skin to form.
The filling volume of the lungs decreases and the patient can breathe less easily. Pain can be caused by an increase in the size of the tumor or by metastases in other organs. This topic might be of interest to you:
- Water in the lungs
