The Maune Raichle Law Firm

Lung Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma of the pleural mesothelium – the mesothelium surrounding the lungs – is by far the most common type of the cancer, accounting for around 70% of all mesothelioma cases. Despite its proximity to the lung, mesothelioma is not a lung cancer because it originates in the mesothelium and has a structure different from that of all lung cancers. The similarity of structure between mesothelioma and adenocarcinoma has led many medical professionals to misdiagnose mesothelioma as lung cancer. The distinction between mesothelioma and lung cancer is especially important for treatment and also to determine a potential employer’s liability to asbestos related mesothelioma cancers.

Mesothelioma has been shown to be caused by asbestos exposure. Lung cancer, on the other hand, has a great many causes, including smoking, general air pollution, and genetics. Mesothelioma is not known to have any environmental causes other than asbestos. Because of this, differentiating between lung cancer and mesothelioma helps to prove that asbestos exposure caused a patient’s cancer. Aside from legal differentiation, diagnosing a cancer as mesothelioma means that it will be treated differently than lung cancer.

To further complicate the issue, mesothelioma commonly infiltrates the lungs as it spreads and cancerous tumors of the lungs are often present at the time mesothelioma is first detected. Lung cancer is often known to spread to the mesothelium, so specific testing to differentiate between mesothelioma and lung cancer is often an important part of the diagnostic process. Since there are no differences between the symptoms of mesothelioma and lung cancer, diagnosis is not aided by a patient’s list of symptoms, making protein marker testing and stained slide microscopic examination the only two ways of differentiating lung cancer of mesothelioma.