A study published last quarter in The American Surgeon provides new insight on some of the factors which may influence peritoneal mesothelioma survival rates. The study was performed by researchers in Sydney, Australia, and included twenty patients treated for the rare cancer at the University of South Wales Department of Surgery between 1997 and 2008.

Peritoneal mesothelioma is a rare cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. The cancer attacks the mesothelial lining of the abdominal organs where it caused fluid buildup, tumors, bowel obstruction, and other serious problems. In time, the disease spreads to the organs themselves, causing organ failure and death. Peritoneal mesothelioma is a terminal cancer whose treatments aim at reducing pain and discomfort while increasing quality of life and survival time.

The patients were selected for the study due to the similarity of their disease’s stage, and because each of them received nearly identical treatments. Each patient underwent surgery to remove tumors and malignant tissues, after which they were administered a heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy regimen. The chemotherapy treatment was comprised of two drugs thought to be more effective acting in tandem, cisplatin and doxorubicin, and was applied directly to the site of the removed tumor after being warmed to improve absorption. All but one of the patients recovered from the treatment.

The study consisted of observing the recovery of each patient in light of their distinguishing characteristics in terms of age, gender, lifestyle and more. The average survival was thirty months after surgery, with individual survival rates ranging from as low as four months. The results were certainly interesting, although the researchers were quick to note that they are still preliminary.

Age and gender played important roles in survival, with women surviving an average of three times longer than men after treatment and, unexpectedly, patients under fifty five years old surviving just a third of the time that older patients did. Researchers believed that the women who participated in the study may have been afflicted with less aggressive tumors. They also noted that incidents of cancer in younger patients may indicate the disease was more aggressive in the first place, making it able to overcome a relatively healthy immune system.

Whether or not the patients were smokers had a serious impact on survival as well. Non-smokers, on average, remained relatively free of malignant cell growth for eleven months after surgery, while smokers redeveloped cancerous tissues just four months after their tumors were removed. Cigarette smoking introduces a variety of known carcinogens into the body, which probably accounts for the faster return of malignant cells in some patients.

Drinking alcohol and a history of regular drinking also affected survival rates, with non-drinkers surviving far longer than regular drinkers after initial treatment. The researchers were unsure why drinking alcohol would impact survival and hope to better understand the phenomena after fully analyzing the results of the study.

A branch of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, is funding a large research project that hopes to shed light on several aspects of asbestos related diseases. The study aims to track the health of thousands of former high school students from Libby, Montana, a town whose population was ruthlessly subjected to asbestos exposure throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.

Libby was home to a large asbestos mining operation which employed more than two hundred miners at any given time and unearthed some 2 million tons of asbestos annually. Not only did processing and fabricating the asbestos create clouds of toxic dust that drifted over the town, but vast quantities of unusable ore was deposited unsafely and above ground throughout the town.

The study targets former students who completed the majority of their high school education at Libby High between 1950 and 1999, and then moved permanently away from the town. Targeting these specific subjects, the researchers hope to learn more about asbestos’s effects on the lungs of children and young adults and the subsequent toll on their health in adult life. More than 13,000 former students of Libby High may participate in the study, undergoing a series of tests including X-rays, pulmonary function tests, CT scans and more.

Asbestos fibers have been positively linked with the development of a cancer known as mesothelioma. The microscopic, needle like fibers of asbestos easily become airborne when agitated, resulting in accidental inhalation or ingestion of the dangerous substance. Once inside the body, asbestos fibers slip through the lung or intestinal wall where they become ensnared in a soft tissue called the mesothelium. In time, the mesothelium’s scarring reaction can cause the development of malignant tumors which eventually bring about organ system failure and death.

Historically, mesothelioma has been well known for its high latency period, that is, the remarkable amount of time that occurs between asbestos exposure and the development of diagnosable symptoms of the disease. The asbestos diseases that are appearing in Libby, Montana, however, seem to be particularly fast acting.

“This progresses much more rapidly than your grandfather’s asbestos-related disease,” says Dr Stephen Levin of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. The study which includes Libby’s former high school students, according to Dr. Levin, is part of a larger effort to effectively assess the health emergency in Libby and better understand the particularly fast moving nature of the asbestos diseases appearing there.

Earlier this month two subsidiaries of the chemical giant RPM International Inc., Bondex International and Specialty Products Holding Corporation, filed for bankruptcy in a maneuver intended to abate huge losses due to asbestos related lawsuits.

The bankruptcies followed the last of a seemingly non-stop trickle of multi-million dollar payouts to the victims of asbestos exposure and their families. The most recent payout came after Bondex International elected not to settle with a man who developed mesothelioma partially because of exposure to their products, but instead to gamble more serious penalties against a lower payout in a court of law. Bondex International ended up sharing responsibility for %60 of an $11 million verdict with Georgia Pacific and Kelly Moore, landing a critical blow to Bondex International’s financial security.

Mesothelioma is an aggressive and fatal cancer that has been linked with exposure to dangerous asbestos fibers. Asbestos fibers, historically found in a variety of products and raw materials in some workplaces, enters the body through accidental inhalation or ingestion. The microscopic, thread-like fibers then pass through the lung or intestinal walls where a soft tissue that surrounds the body’s organs known as the mesothelium entangles them.

Deposits of asbestos fibers in the mesothelium trigger an internal scarring reaction. After years or even decades, that scarring can develop into malignant tumors which spread throughout the body and eventually cause organ failure and death.

Bondex International has been involved in a variety of asbestos related lawsuits over the past twenty years as diagnoses of asbestos related disease continue to rise. Several years ago the company set aside some $190 million to cover existing and future asbestos claims, but that amount didn’t stretch as far as the company had imagined. This year an additional $288 million was reserved to cover future asbestos related claims, causing the company to report a loss of more than $85 million for the quarter ending last month.

The bankruptcy declaration could help to Bondex International to avoid further liabilities.

“This action has been taken to once and for all resolve the asbestos-related Bondex legacy liability. These filings bring an immediate halt to all tort system costs associated with the Bondex asbestos liabilities, and enable the filing entities to utilize section 524(g) and other provisions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to achieve a permanent and comprehensive resolution of asbestos-related liability,” said RPM International Inc.’s CEO, Frank Sullivan.

These types of maneuvers, as well as the establishment of federal funds to cover the medical needs of asbestos affected families, could indicate the homestretch for the battle against asbestos and negligent asbestos companies throughout the USA. As more and more companies are held responsible for asbestos illnesses and evidence of their negligence continues to mount, affected individuals and families stand a far greater chance of being heard and compensated fairly.