Asbestos Related Diseases
with offices in Maryland - Pennsylvania - Delaware - Tennessee
The inhalation of asbestos fiber has been associated with many serious and deadly conditions including mesothelioma, lung cancer, colon cancer, esophageal cancer, and asbestosis.
Asbestos-related illnesses generally have a long latency period. Symptoms can take as many as 15-30 years after exposure to appear. Tragically, most asbestos-related diseases are incurable.
Mesothelioma
The most serious disease caused by asbestos is mesothelioma.
Pleural mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the lungs. Peritoneal mesothelioma is cancer of the abdominal lining. Both forms of mesothelioma are caused almost exclusively by asbestos. Death usually occurs within 18 to 36 months of the time of diagnosis. To learn more about this deadly disease called mesothelioma, please click here.
Asbestosis and Other Diseases
In addition to mesothelioma, asbestos can also cause cancer in the lungs, stomach, colon, throat, esophagus and other organs of the body, as well as chronic and deadly fibrotic lung disease. To learn more about these conditions, click here.
Exposure
Because asbestos fibers are invisible, tasteless, odorless, and indestructible, many people have been - and continue to be - unknowingly exposed to this material with devastating results. Since it can take years after exposure for effects to appear, asbestos-related diseases continue to affect new individuals and their families every year.
Most individuals who have been injured or have died from asbestos-related diseases were exposed when asbestos-containing products were installed or replaced in commercial and industrial buildings. Tradesmen often had to saw, cut, and pound the products, a process that emitted billions of microscopic asbestos fibers into the atmosphere.
Exposure to asbestos is not limited only to those who directly handle the material. Asbestos-related diseases have been found in bystanders, such as shipfitters, machinists, or electricians who work alongside the insulation worker in a shipyard or the housewife who does no more than shake out and wash her husband's work clothes. Community exposure has resulted from the use of asbestos-containing material sprayed on steel girders in many large buildings. Anyone in the vicinity of airborne asbestos is at risk for breathing the fibers and developing disease.
Asbestos exposure is particularly dangerous in people who have smoked tobacco or continue to smoke. A person who smokes and who has inhaled asbestos is at least 50 times more likely to develop lung cancer.
If you or a loved one has been exposed to asbestos, or is suffering from mesothelioma or other asbestos-related diseases, we would like to help.
E-mail or call one of our asbestos attorneys to schedule a free initial consultation today.
