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Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that is often associated with exposure to asbestos, often in a work environment. The disease is often associated with blue collar workers, but there have been some very notable deaths from the disease in the last 50 years.

Mesothelioma is a cancer of the mesothelium, which is where it gets its name. The mesothelium is a lining found in the abdomen and chest cavity. It acts as protection for organs such as the heart and lungs, while also providing a friction control surface so that organs may move against each other without causing damage.

The number of people that have lost their life to Mesothelioma are many, but not a lot of them are famous. The disease is associated with asbestos exposure. This tends to occur in industrial areas such as power plants, oil refineries, paper mills, and shipyards. While commendable, most people working in these professions do not move on to fame and fortune. Still, a few names are extremely notable.

Steve McQueen was considered the man’s man. An actor and lover of racing, he was diagnosed in 1979 with Mesothelioma. His physicians felt the disease was so far along that treatment was impossible. McQueen refused to accept this and moved to Mexico to undergo experimental treatments. While there, he died of a heart attack on November 8, 1970 following one of his surgical treatments for the cancer.

Musician Warren Zevon was diagnosed with inoperable Mesothelioma in 2002. He spent the remaining year of his life recording his final album. Titled “The Wind”, it is a haunting rendition of his condition and experience. He passed away in Los Angeles on September 7, 2003.

The simple fact is every life is notable whether they are famous or not. Thousands have lost their lives to the effects of asbestos exposure and subsequent diagnoses of Mesothelioma. This doesn’t even count those that “merely” developed lung cancer and the debilitating asbestosis instead.

Thomas Ajava is with MesotheliomaInjuryTexas.com – where you find information and help on the long history of Mesothelioma injury in Texas.

Lung cancer currently ranks as the leading cause of cancer related death in men and women. Although continuing to decline in men, incidence rates remain stable in women, following an increase throughout the 1990’s. Trends in lung cancer related deaths, are largely attributed to trends in smoking over the past several decades. In 2008, the American Cancer Society estimates 215,020 new cases will be diagnosed and 161,870 deaths due to lung cancer will occur in the United States alone…

Traditional treatment for lung cancer are surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapies, ans photodtnamic therapy.

Your treatment will depend on what kind of lung cancer you have, and what stage your cancer is at (how serious it is).

In the case of surgery… there are many kinds of surgery for lung cancer, such as pneumonectomy (where one entire lung is removed), lobectomy (where a section “lobe” of the lung is removed), a segmentectomy / wedge resection (where part of a lobe is removed), laser surgery ( where a high-energy beam of light destroys the cancer cells in a tumor).

In the case of radiation therapy… this therapy uses high-energy radiation to kill cancer cells. The radiation can be delivered by a machine that directs the high-energy rays towards your cancer, or by a small radioactive pellet that gets implanted in or near the tumor.

In the case of chemotherapy… means taking anti-cancer drugs, either by swallowing them or by injection. One or more chemotherapy drugs may be administered through a vein in your arm (intravenously) or taken orally. A combination of drugs usually is given in a series of treatments over a period of weeks or months, with breaks in between so that your body can recover.

In the case of targeted drug therapy… these are newer cancer treatments that work by targeting specific abnormalities in cancer cells. Targeted therapy options for treating lung cancer include…

Bevacizumab (Avastin), which stops a tumor from creating a new blood supply. Blood vessels that connect to tumors can supply oxygen and nutrients to the tumor, allowing it to grow. Bevacizumab is usually used in combination with chemotherapy and is approved for advanced and recurrent non-small cell lung cancer. Bevacizumab carries a risk of severe bleeding.

Erlotinib (Tarceva), which blocks chemicals that signal the cancer cells to grow and divide. Erlotinib is approved for people with advanced and recurrent non-small cell lung cancer that haven’t been helped by chemotherapy. Erlotinib side effects include a skin rash and diarrhea.

Doctors are getting better at diagnosing and treating lung cancer, which means people with lung cancer have a better chance of recovering and living longer. Still, lung cancer is one of the deadliest cancers. It’s important for people with lung cancer to know what to expect and to plan for the future. It’s also important to remember that not all lung cancers are the same, and that the treatment or the prognosis for one patient with lung cancer may be very different than the next person with lung cancer.

Some people choose to use alternative therapies as lung cancer treatment instead of conventional treatments or medicine, because when one begins to understand why cells have become cancerous in the first place, it makes sense to try and reverse the process.

For instance, we all know or should know that a weakened immune system leads to cancer… while a strong immune system seeks out and destroys cancer cells. For most of your life, the immune system has successfully dealt with cancer cells, killing them off as they developed. That’s its job. For cancer to have developed in you, your immune system must have become worn out, ineffective and unable to deal with the cancer cells.

Thus it is vital in your battle against cancer to strengthen the immune system. Especially if you are getting medical treatments that wipe out the immune system, and make the body more acidic to boot. Many natural supplements and a proper diet supports the immune system. The other concern is to make sure you take enough. Lung cancer is not something to pussyfoot around with.

Wyatt Schell is a webmaster at the exclusive cancer treatment and help resource, Cancer-Help-Treatment.com – Follow this link for more revealing facts on lung cancer.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is one of the newer lung cancer treatment options available today. Lung cancers are sometimes inoperable, particularly when they are situated in the bronchi or trachea. Similarly, cancers that have spread from other parts of the body to the bronchi cannot be removed surgically. In such cases, photodynamic therapy offers a safe and effective treatment option.

In a best-case scenario, PDT is used as a curative therapy that can eliminate the cancer completely. In many patients, PDT is employed as a palliative lung cancer treatment meant to provide relief from symptoms even though it does not cure the cancer.

Photodynamic therapy can effectively relieve symptoms like breathing difficulties from obstructions in the bronchi or trachea. In some patients, tumors block the airways and can cause coughing, breathing difficulties, pneumonia and bleeding. PDT may be used in such cases depending on the location, size and stage of the tumor.

PDT destroys cancer cells using a laser. To ensure that only cancerous cells are destroyed, a special drug is used to make the cancer cells more sensitive to this treatment while leaving normal cells intact.

There are three steps involved in the process of lung cancer treatment using PDT. In stage one, a drug called photofrin is injected intravenously. This drug has the property of making body cells very sensitive to light. Normal, healthy cells eliminate photofrin, but cancerous cells are unable to do so and the drug is retained in such cells.

In the second stage of PDT, about forty to fifty hours after the injection is given, a flexible tube is inserted into the bronchia. This tube contains a red laser of low intensity. The cancer cells exposed to this laser are destroyed.

In the third and final stage, about two days after the laser light exposure, a bronchoscopy is done to get rid of the dead cancer cells and mucus from the bronchi or trachea.

A patient can benefit from photodynamic therapy only if his or her cancer is situated in a location that is accessible to a bronchoscope. Also, the tumor must be large enough so that the bronchoscope can easily detect it. This means that some cancers like those located outside the bronchial passages cannot be treated with PDT.

Lung cancer treatment with PDT offers almost no dangerous side effects, unlike other treatment methods. Photosensitivity is about the only side effect that lasts for a while. Since photofrin makes cells sensitive to light, the patient may experience heightened light sensitivity for a period of four to eight weeks after the treatment.

During this time, even normal exposure to sunlight can result in severe sunburn. For this reason, patients who have undergone PDT are advised not to venture out into the sun for about eight weeks after their lung cancer treatment. In contrast to photodynamic therapy, major surgery done to eliminate lung cancer usually poses much greater risks.

Many tumors that are inoperable because of their location are prime candidates for treatment with PDT. When used as a palliative, this type of lung cancer treatment offers almost immediate relief.

Given all these advantages, increasing numbers of patients have been using photodynamic therapy as a lung cancer treatment of choice.

Linda Day is a researcher who has written about lung cancer symptoms, lung cancer prognosis and other related topics. For more information about this disease, check out the previous links.