Peritoneal Mesothelioma Cancer Facts

Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma is a rare form of mesothelioma that attack the lining of abdomen peritoneum. Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma (MPM) is regarded as a universally fatal disease affecting 20% to 30% of mesothelioma cases. It’s was first described by Miller and Wynn in year 1908. In the past two decades, the incidence of malignant peritoneal mesothelioma has increased.

Peritoneal mesothelioma affects the lining of the abdomen known as the peritoneum. Because of the location of malignant cell is human’s abdominal lining, peritoneal mesothelioma can sometimes known as abdominal mesothelioma.

The exactly known cause of the malignant pleaural mesothelioma in human is asbestos. Asbestos exposure contributed to almost 70 to 80 percent of mesothelioma lung cancer. Humans come into contact with asbestos when they swallow or inhale the fibers may increased risk to develop asbestos related disease most importantly mesothelioma.

Asbestos was completely banned in UK because it was recognized to be a serious health hazard, and it is now responsible for about 4000 deaths each year and many cases of serious disease. The people at increase risk of developing health asbestos related are those whose work brings them into direct contact with asbestos such as builders, heating engineers, roofers and demolition workers. If you find yourself to fall in this group, better to take some precautions.

In addition to mesothelioma, asbestos exposure may increase the risk of other health problems such as lung cancer, asbestosis also known as chronic lung ailment and other type of cancer such as larynx and kidney cancer.

Peritoneal Mesothelioma – Symptoms

This cancer type can takes such a long time to develop the symptoms and sometimes may take up to 30 years, between exposure to asbestos and the start of the disease. Most common symptoms of this disease are abdominal pain, abdominal swelling, abnormal weight loss, anemia, easy fatigue, nausea and vomiting. Abdominal pain and swelling is a result from fluid accumulation in the abdominal cavity.

Other than that, you can easily to get fever when the disease starts to shows its symptoms. Among the symptoms stated above, abdominal pain is the most common report initial symptoms of peritoneal mesothelioma cancer.

Unexplained night sweats and hypercoagulability less frequent symptoms occurs when the disease develops. If the cancer cell has spread to the other part of the body, the symptoms may lead to trouble swallowing or swelling of the neck or face.