Enhanced Testing To Detect Asbestos Cancer

A prudent team of researchers at the Oxford University have asserted that they have discovered a highly responsive test for the mesothelioma cancer that proliferates over protracted periods of time, though the affected patients normally have a shorter life span.

Mesothelioma cancer is a deadly tumour that develops on the lung surface due to asbestos exposure and takes several decades to manifest itself. Though the disease has been detected in individuals with no past contact with asbestos, however inhalation of the dust expelled by asbestos during its disintegration is believed to be a crucial risk factor. The disease is predominantly found in those involved in professions like joining, plumbing and electrical fitting.

Though Mesothelioma cancer is comparatively rare, it is not easy to treat due to its location and unfavourable response to chemotherapy. Experts have estimated that by the year 2013, the United Kingdom itself is expected to have a sharp increase of cited cases being close to 2,200. Though in developed countries stringent laws to avert occupation-related contact with asbestos is in place, there is a dearth of these laws in the developing countries.

The scientists have laid emphasis on the means to discern mesothelioma as a reason for the abnormal fluid accumulation in the pleural cavity bordering the lungs known as pleural effusion. Though there are several reasons that lead to pleural effusion, most of those being benign or associated with other cancerous forms. But, this symptom has been noticed in more than ninety percent of the mesothelioma patients.

Currently, a laboratory testing known as the pleural fluid cytology is carried out by doctors to detect cancer cells, which according to the Oxford team is not sensitive enough to detect the malignant formation. The Oxford Group associates utilized the samples of pleural fluid extracted from more than two hundred suspected Mesothelioma patients that had been advised to visit a dedicated respiratory treatment centre. The team observed that there were high levels of the protein meothelin discharged in the pleural fluid of majority of such patients that was almost six times higher in comparison with secondary lung cancer patients and ten times higher than those patients with benign symptoms.

Dr. Helen Davies also associated with the research work has stated that this novel method is a means for doctors to easily detect mesothelioma cases from its preliminary stages that would permit swifter intercession to alleviate the symptoms, alongside undertaking of chemotherapy or radiotherapy procedures if deemed necessary. She has stated that as mesothelioma has an average endurance period of a year, this simplistic test aids in lowering the frequency of invasive tests and practices that the patients needs which is important to lower morbid levels and hospitalization time.

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