Asbestosis is an asbetos-related disease and may be considered as an occupational disease too since the most cases occur among people who worked with asbestos or their families, but there are cases of people who developed it, without have been in contact with this mineral at any period of their lives.
Asbestosis may be defined as a chronic inflammatory medical condition that affects the parenchymal tissue of the lungs. Experts consider asbestosis as an irreversible lung scarring that can be fatal. It occurs after a long-term and a heavy exposure to asbestos.
Asbestos are six fibrous minerals that have been used in commercial products, such as roofing products, gaskets, and friction products, due to various properties that make asbestos have high tensile strength, chemical and thermal stability, high flexibility and low electrical conductivity.
These six types of asbestos are chrysotile, crocidolite, amosite, anthophyllite asbestos, tremolite asbestos, and actinolite asbestos. Nearly all of the asbestos produced worldwide is chrysotile.
When the person has inhaled or swallowed asbestos fibers, his body will try to remove them by the cough but the lungs will scar and get thick, what makes hard for lungs the breathing movements of expansion and contraction.
Therefore, people with Asbestosis suffer severe dyspnea or shortness of breath and have an increased risk for developing different types of lung cancer and mesothelioma. There is no cure for this pathology and either a good way to treat it. The only thing that physician can do is to reduce some of the worst symptoms of the disease.
