Mesothelioma is a disease of the lung lining and chest wall contracted from exposure to asbestos. It is responsible for as many deaths as cervical cancer. They will highlight recent trials which show that chemotherapy treatment improves the symptoms of mesothelioma, while a combination of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery can produce prolonged survival, if the disease is detected early. There were few side effects. In a separate study the life expectancy of 31 patients who underwent a combination of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery was extended by two to five years.
Surgery involves the removal of the whole of the affected lung and the membranes surrounding it.
Doctors may also need to remove the membranes surrounding the heart, and the diaphragm, the muscle associated with breathing. This emphasises the importance of developing effective treatment and recent developments suggest that we are beginning to make progress. Mesothelioma is most common in men born in the 1940s, who worked in construction and building maintenance. It is predicted to be the cause of one per cent of all deaths of men in this group by the year 2020. The disease can take up to 35 years to develop from the point that asbestos is first breathed in.