Mesothelioma is a form of cancer nearly always caused by asbestos. It is usually a tumour of the pleura, which is the lining between your lung and your rib cage, but it can sometimes affect your peritoneum, the lining between your bowel and the cavity of your abdomen. On rare occasions, it may affect other parts of the body. New drugs are being developed and tested in clinical trials. New surgery techniques are being used, combined with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy, but this work is in its early stages. Specialist doctors or nurses can control pain successfully. They are called palliative care experts. Macmillan nurses are highly trained in the management of this illness.

Mesothelioma can be difficult to diagnose, as there are many other causes of pleural thickening and pleural effusions (fluid around the lung). These conditions can be caused by other cancers, or by infections or persistent inflammation. Usually, a biopsy, or more than one biopsy, has to be done in order to diagnose mesothelioma.

Symptoms usually begin with breathlessness or with back or chest pain caused by a build up of fluid around the lung. This is called a pleural effusion. This fluid can be removed from the pleural space to relieve symptoms, and a type of surgery called pleurodesis is sometimes carried out to prevent fluid building up again in the pleural space. Patients can develop swelling and discomfort in the places where biopsies have been carried out, or surgery performed. Radiotherapy is now used to treat these symptoms.

A specialist solicitor should be able to get a case to court for someone with mesothelioma within 6 to 12 months. It is important that a solicitor takes a detailed statement from the person who has mesothelioma, preferably in the early stages of the illness. Only a specialist solicitor will be able to complete the case this quickly.

You do not have to get asbestosis in order to get mesothelioma. Most people who develop mesothelioma do not have asbestosis.

Mesothelioma has no connection with cigarette smoking.

Practically all mesotheliomas are caused by asbestos exposure. It can be caused by short periods of exposure to asbestos. You might not even have worked with asbestos. People who lived near asbestos factories have developed mesothelioma. People have developed mesothelioma as a result of living with someone else who worked with asbestos and brought dust home on their clothes.

If someone dies of mesothelioma, or any other asbestos-related disease, the law says there must be an inquest, so the coroner must be told immediately, and there should be a post-mortem.

If you have a relative who died of mesothelioma, and the doctor instructed by the Coroner says that asbestos found in the lungs did not cause the mesothelioma, or the mesothelioma was not caused by work, you should get a second opinion. A specialist solicitor will get one for you.

Many types of work generated enough asbestos dust to cause mesothelioma. Garage workers, joiners, carpenters, electricians, building workers, dockers, plumbers, heating engineers, and others, are at risk. See the list of asbestos products later on.

It is predicted that in the UK the number of people who will die each year from mesothelioma will rise to about 2,700, and will not begin to fall for another 20 years.

It is rare for someone under 40 to get mesothelioma, because there is always a long delay between first exposure to asbestos and development of the illness. Some doctors think there must be a 20 year delay, but people have got this illness as early as 10 years after breathing in asbestos.

Knowledge of mesothelioma is more recent than knowledge of asbestosis. It has been known since 1957 or 1958 by some asbestos manufacturers, but widely known in industry since the mid 1960s, that very small amounts of asbestos dust can cause mesothelioma.

This means that if you get mesothelioma, or any other asbestos disease, because of contact with asbestos within the last 35 years, you can almost certainly get compensation through the courts if the company that exposed you, either at work, or to its asbestos products, still exists.

The difficulty you can face in getting compensation is that the firm or company may have gone out of business. Even if they have gone out of business, it is worth seeing a solicitor, because you should be able to get compensation under a special Government scheme. Or a solicitor may be able to bring the company back into existence and bring a court action against it.

Typical awards for mesothelioma itself are now £50,000 - £60,000. Extra amounts are awarded for lost earnings, care, specialist equipment, medical expenses, and for lost income, which the victim would have had in the future, but for the illness. Compensation claims for mesothelioma are frequently worth £100,000 or more.

If you need advice about an asbestos related illness, contact us now for information about making a claim for compensation.