Asbestos Lung Disease

Asbestosis is an asbetos-related disease and may be considered as an occupational disease too since the most cases occur among people who worked with Asbestos Lung Disease or their families, but there are cases of people who developed it, without have been in contact with this mineral at any period of their lives.

Asbestosis may be defined as a chronic inflammatory medical condition that affects the parenchymal tissue of the lungs. Experts consider asbestosis as an irreversible lung scarring that can be fatal. It occurs after a long-term and a heavy exposure to asbestos.

Asbestos are six fibrous minerals that have been used in commercial products, such as roofing products, gaskets, and friction products, due to various properties that make asbestos have high tensile strength, chemical and thermal stability, high flexibility and low electrical conductivity.

These six types of Asbestos Lung Disease are chrysotile, crocidolite, amosite, anthophyllite asbestos, tremolite asbestos, and actinolite asbestos. Nearly all of the asbestos produced worldwide is chrysotile.

When the person has inhaled or swallowed asbestos fibers, his body will try to remove them by the cough but the lungs will scar and get thick, what makes hard for lungs the breathing movements of expansion and contraction.

Therefore, people with Asbestosis suffer severe dyspnea or shortness of breath and have an increased risk for developing different types of lung cancer and mesothelioma. There is no cure for this pathology and either a good way to treat it. The only thing that physician can do is to reduce some of the worst symptoms of the lung disease.

A benign pleural disease is an asbestos-related disease which still has something of mystery to experts, since they don't know why some asbestos workers get one of several benign diseases of the pleura while others are not affected by the terrible consequences of Asbestos.

The pleural cavity is the space between the lungs and the chest wall, which has an small amount of pleural fluid in the normal non-diseased state. The pleura is the epithelium that lines this cavity. Asbestos fibers can reach this part of the body.

The parietal pleura, which is connected to the chest wall, is highly sensitive to pain. Meanwhile, the visceral pleura, which is connected to the lung and other visceral tissues, is not sensitive to pain.

The function of pleura and pleural fluid is to reduce friction between the lungs and the inside of the chest wall during breathing. Asbestos fibers make difficult this. A benign pleural condition usually does not progress and is not fatal. These conditions include pleural plaques, diffuse pleural fibrosis and benign pleural effusion.

Pleural effusion occurs when fluid accumulates in the pleural space and compresses the lungs.

Pleural plaques is a discrete fibrous or partially calcified thickened area which can be seen on x-rays of individuals exposed to asbestos. Benign pleural diseases appear various years after the exposure to asbestos and according to some experts cause little or no trouble, since some people do not even show symptoms. However, having a benign pleural disease may be the sign of developing asbestosis or another asbestos-related disease later.