Survival Rates of Mesothelioma
The term survival rate refers to the percentage of people who will live for a certain period of time after receiving a diagnosis. It is often measured in years, such as one-year, five-year and 10-year survival rates, but the five-year rate is the time span most commonly used by the medical community. Because of the nature of mesothelioma cancer, a rare and aggressive disease, data for 10-year survival rates is not available, and researchers tend to evaluate pleural mesothelioma patients in one-year intervals up to five years.
Survival rates for pleural mesothelioma patients are low. About 10 percent of people diagnosed with the disease live between three and five years. Only 5 percent survive five years or longer. Although mesothelioma remains an incurable cancer with a short life expectancy, some patients surpass the average mesothelioma survival rate because of their overall good health and by electing to receive specific treatments. For patients who are able to have surgery, survival rates are likely to be much higher than those of patients who aren't candidates for surgery. This is because surgery gives patients the best chance of removing as much of the cancer as possible and this slows down metastasis to extend survival.
Several factors about pleural mesothelioma cancer and the patient can affect survival rates. One of the most important factors is the stage at which the cancer was discovered. Another influential factor is the cell type of the cancer. Both the stage and the cell type of the cancer are important because they influence the type of treatments that are available and indicate how effective those treatments are likely to be. A patient's eligibility for treatment options like surgery and chemotherapy and how they react to these treatments will also affect survival rate statistics.
Staging of Pleural Mesothelioma and Survival Rate
Staging has the most significant influence on pleural mesothelioma survival rates. The earlier pleural mesothelioma is diagnosed, for instance, in Stage 1 or Stage 2 when the tumor is less likely to have spread beyond the point of origin, the more likely it can be surgically removed or controlled with other types of treatment. However, if it is detected during a later stage of development, such as Stage 3 or Stage 4, the cancer has likely spread to other areas of the body and many types of treatment are less likely to be effective in treating it. Therefore, since there are fewer effective treatments available to treat late-stage pleural mesothelioma, the expected life expectancy is much shorter and the average associated survival rate is much lower. In a 1996 study, only about one-third of patients with Stage 4 pleural mesothelioma survived one year or more. Stage 3 mesothelioma patients tend to share similar results.
There is one primary factor for why people with Stage 1 or Stage 2 pleural mesothelioma have a higher survival rate than those with a Stage 3 or Stage 4 diagnosis. Stage 1 and 2 cases are more likely to be candidates for surgery. Since surgery removes more cancerous cells than any other treatment, surgery is considered to be one of the most effective means of treatment.
Early detection is one of the most important factors effecting survival rate. It is possible to detect the cancer before symptoms are noticeable, but because pleural mesothelioma symptoms are normally so mild, and many people are unaware of the health risks associated with asbestos exposure, early detection often occurs unexpectedly while treating a separate condition. The best way for anyone with a history of asbestos exposure to detect pleural mesothelioma in its early stages is to have an annual screening with someone familiar with asbestos-related diseases.
Cell Types that Affect Survival Rate
Pleural mesothelioma can consist of two cell types, including epithelial and sarcomatoid cells. In some cases, mesothelioma can be made up of a combination of the two, known as biphasic mesothelioma. Although survival rate statistics are not generally kept for individual cell types, there is no doubt that a particular cell type can influence a patient's chance of surpassing the five-year survival rate.
Epithelioid mesothelioma, the most common cell type, typically responds more favorably to surgery and chemotherapy, which are two of the most effective treatment methods for pleural mesothelioma. As a result, those who reach the five-year survival rate generally have the epithelial cell type. In contrast, tumors made up of sarcomatoid cells are less responsive to most treatments; therefore, associated survival rates are lower. Tumors that are biphasic in cell make-up often have a mixed response to treatment that is dependent on the ratio of sarcomatoid to epithelial cells. The larger the ratio in favor of sarcomatoid cells the less likely the tumors are to respond favorably to treatment, and therefore they are more likely to have lower associated survival rates.
Other Factors that Affect Survival Rate
Even though the stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis is the most important determinant of survival for mesothelioma patients, a number of other factors can also play a role. Overall health is important, and it is one element a doctor uses to determine how aggressive to be during treatment. For instance, people who are not in good overall health can be removed from consideration for surgery. Being in good health also helps patients respond better to treatments like chemotherapy and radiation.
The sooner a patient is diagnosed, the better the associated survival rates. Factors that can lower the odds of beating average survival rates and make symptoms worse include smoking, fluid in the lungs, larger tumors and built-up scar tissue. All of these can significantly limit treatment options.
How Treatment Affects Survival Rate
How well pleural mesothelioma responds to treatment is a big contributor to a patient's survival rate. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of patients benefit from surgery. When patients receive palliative treatment without surgery, average survival is about six months. Research is now showing that a multimodal approach involving surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy provides patients with the best chance of reaching the five-year survival rate for pleural mesothelioma.
One study showed that a multimodal treatment plan most effectively helped patients to live longer than five years. Data showed a five-year survival rate of 46 percent in patients diagnosed with epithelioid mesothelioma, no mediastinal lymph node involvement (Stage 1) and clear resection margins (meaning these patients had the most cancer cells removed from the edges of the tumor during surgery).
Another study at Brigham and Women's reported two- and five-year survival rates of 38 percent and 15 percent in 183 patients with pleural mesothelioma who received chemotherapy or chemoradiation following an extrapleural pneumonectomy.
The standard chemotherapy regimen for pleural mesothelioma is a combination of cisplatin and pemetrexed. Such chemotherapy drugs are often prescribed after surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells. If doctors were unable to remove all of a tumor during surgery, they may use radiation therapy to shrink any remaining tumors. This kind of combination treatment can help manage pleural mesothelioma and increase associated survival rates.
Life Expectancy of Pleural Mesothelioma Patients
Having a diagnosis of pleural mesothelioma generally means a short life expectancy. The median survival rate for patients is six to eight months. This low rate is caused by numerous factors. Most malignant pleural mesothelioma patients are older and are diagnosed only once the cancer has reached later stages.
Despite the poor prognosis, some patients can live for five years or longer after being diagnosed with MPM. These patients usually undergo significant treatments that include a combination of surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Other factors that help to increase life expectancy include a uniform cell type that make up the tumor, good overall health and an early diagnosis.
As diagnostic tests and treatment options continue to improve, so will the average mesothelioma prognosis. This is especially true for MPM. Because pleural mesothelioma accounts for 75 percent of all mesothelioma cases, most of the research on the disease pertains to MPM.
Find out what you can do to improve your life expectancy. Request a free informational packet from The Mesothelioma Center with details about treatments, prognosis and doctors. Complete the form on this page to have a complimentary packet mailed to you overnight.
Factors Affecting Pleural Mesothelioma Life Expectancy
One 2009 study analyzed the overall survival of 456 malignant pleural mesothelioma patients. Groups of patients were separated based on the types of cell structure that made up their tumors as well as what surgical treatments they elected to receive.
Pleurectomy/decortication, which removes cancerous areas of the lining of the lung, was performed on more than half the patients. Pleurodesis/biopsy, which is used to drain fluid and reduce future buildup, was also a common choice. Extrapleural pneumonectomy , in which the diseased lung is entirely removed, was the least-favored option because of the severity of losing a lung. All three types of surgery were associated with an improved average survival.
Improving Pleural Mesothelioma Life Expectancy
Though some life expectancy factors such as age at diagnosis or latency period cannot be altered or otherwise improved, advancements in pleural mesothelioma treatment are improving life expectancies for many patients. Medical professionals that research and treat pleural mesothelioma are always seeking and testing new methods to improve the prognosis, which is primarily achieved through clinical trials and mesothelioma research. These trials test new medications and treatment options and a number of mesothelioma patients have benefited from participating in such clinical studies.
Advancements in the early diagnosis of pleural mesothelioma are also opening up more treatment options to a greater number of patients. Early detection allows physicians to take a more aggressive treatment track and this can greatly improve life expectancy, but this option is not available to all mesothelioma patients and varies from case to case. Some of the more aggressive treatment options include surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
After surgery, some patients underwent further treatments: radiation therapy and/or chemotherapy. These additional treatments made a notable difference in life expectancy and were associated with a higher 18-month survival rate. This means that patients who had surgery followed by more treatments had a higher chance of living for 18 or more months. Of all 456 patients, 127 of them lived 18 months or longer.
The study also concluded that some tumors are easier to treat than others. Tumors made up of more uniform cells generally are associated with a better prognosis and longer life expectancy than tumors with a more randomized cell structure.
In addition to cell type and treatment, certain other factors are affiliated with a better prognosis. Good overall health contributes to a longer life expectancy after diagnosis. Younger patients with better health generally have fewer complications during treatment and faster recovery after surgery.
If your pleural mesothelioma is diagnosed in early stages, you likely will have a longer life expectancy. This is generally because the tumor is still localized, which normally gives you more treatment options. However, since it can take decades for symptoms to appear, it is rare for MPM to be diagnosed in an early stage. In fact, only about 10 to 20 percent of all pleural mesothelioma patients are diagnosed early enough to receive potentially curative surgery.
Gold mining is the removal of gold from the ground. There are several techniques and processes by which gold may be extracted from the earth.
History
It is impossible to know the exact date that humans first began to mine gold, but some of the oldest known gold artifacts were found in the Varna Necropolis in Bulgaria. The graves of the necropolis were built between 4700 and 4200 BC, indicating that gold mining could be at least 7000 years old.
Gold objects are plentiful in the Bronze age, especially in Ireland and Spain, and there are several well known possible sources.
Golden helmet (Leiro, Galicia)
Romans used hydraulic mining methods, such as hushing and ground sluicing on a large scale to extract gold from extensive alluvial deposits, such as those at Las Medulas. Mining was under the control of the state but the mines may have been leased to civilian contractors some time later. The gold served as the primary medium of exchange within the empire, and was an important motive in the Roman invasion of Britain by Claudius in the first century A.D., although there is only one known Roman gold mine at Dolaucothi in west Wales. Gold was a prime motivation for the campaign in Dacia when the Romans invaded Transylvania in what is now modern Romania in the second century A.D. The legions were led by the emperor Trajan, and their exploits are shown on Trajan's Column in Rome and the several reproductions of the column elsewhere (such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London).
Under the Eastern Roman Empire Emperor Justinian's rule, gold was mined in the Balkans, Anatolia, Armenia, Egypt, and Nubia. Gold was first mined in the area of the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) in Bangarpet Taluk of Kolar District of Karnataka state, India, prior to the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. by digging small pits. During the Chola period in the 9th and 10th century A.D., the scale of the operation grew.
The tradition of mining gold started at least as early as the first millennium B.C. The Champion reef at the Kolar gold fields was mined to a depth of 50 metres during the Gupta period in the fifth century A.D. The metal continued to be mined by the eleventh century kings of South India, the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1560, and later by Tipu Sultan, the king of Mysore state and the British. It is estimated that the total gold production in Karnataka to date is 1000 tons.
Mining of the Slovak deposit primarily aroung Kremnica were the last largest of the Medieval period in Europe.
The discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand led to the Second Boer War and ultimately the founding of South Africa.
Methods
Placer mining
Panning
Gold panning is mostly a manual technique of separating gold from other materials. Wide, shallow pans are filled with sand and gravel that may contain gold. The pan is submerged in water and shaken, sorting the gold from the gravel and other material. As gold is much denser than rock, it quickly settles to the bottom of the pan. The panning material is usually removed from stream beds, often at the inside turn in the stream, or from the bedrock shelf of the stream, where the density of gold allows it to concentrate, a type called placer deposits.
Gold in gold pan—Alaska
Gold panning is the easiest technique for searching for gold, but is not commercially viable for extracting gold from large deposits, except where labor costs are very low or gold traces are substantial. Panning is often marketed as a tourist attraction on former gold fields. Before large production methods are used, a new source must be identified and panning is useful to identify placer gold deposits to be evaluated for commercial viability.
Sluicing
Gold sluicing at Dilban Town, New Zealand, 1880s
Taking gold out of a sluice box, western North America, 1900s
Using a sluice box to extract gold from placer deposits has long been a common practice in prospecting and small-scale mining. A sluice box is essentially a man made channel with riffles set in the bottom. The riffles are designed to create dead zones in the current to allow gold to drop out of suspension. The box is placed in the stream to channel water flow. Gold-bearing material is placed at the top of the box. The material is carried by the current through the box where gold and other dense material settles out behind the riffles. Less dense material flows out of the box as tailings.
Larger commercial placer mining operations employ screening plants, or trommels, to remove the larger alluvial materials such as boulders and gravel, before concentrating the remainder in a sluice box or jig plant. These operations typically include diesel powered, earth moving equipment, including excavators, bulldozers, wheel loaders, and rock trucks.
Dredging:
Although this method has largely been replaced by modern methods, some dredging is done by small-scale miners using suction dredges. These are small machines that float on the water and are usually operated by one or two people. A suction dredge consists of a sluice box supported by pontoons, attached to a suction hose which is controlled by a miner working beneath the water.
State dredging permits in many of the United States gold dredging areas specify a seasonal time period and area closures to avoid conflicts between dredgers and the spawning time of fish populations. Some states, such as Montana, require an extensive permitting procedure, including permits from the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, and the local county water quality boards.
Some large suction dredges are used in commercial production throughout the world. Small suction dredges are much more efficient at extracting smaller gold than the old bucket line. This has improved the chances of finding gold. Smaller dredges with 2-to-4-inch suction tubes are used to sample areas behind boulders and along potential pay streaks, until "color" appears.
Other larger scale dredging operations take place on exposed river gravel bars at seasonal low water. These operations typically use a land based excavator to feed a gravel screening plant and sluice box floating in a temporary pond. The pond is excavated in the gravel bar and filled from the natural water table. "Pay" gravel is excavated from the front face of the pond and processed through the floating plant, with the gold trapped in the onboard sluice box and tailings stacked behind the plant, steadily filling in the back of the pond as the operation moves forward. This type of gold mining is characterized by its low cost, as each rock is moved only once. It also has low environmental impact, as no stripping of vegetation or overburden is necessary, and all process water is fully recycled. Such operations are typical on New Zealand's South Island and in the Klondike region of Canada.
Rocker box:
The rocker box, also called a cradle, uses a riffles located in a high-walled box to trap gold in a similar manner to the sluice box. A rocker box uses less water than a sluice box and is thus well suited for areas where water is limited. A rocking motion provides the water movement needed for the gravity separation of gold in placer material.
Hard rock mining:
Hard rock mining at the Associated Gold Mine, Kalgoorlie, Australia, 1951.
Gold mining in Coromandel Peninsula, NewZealand in the 1890's
Gold-bearing quartz veins in Alaska Hard rock gold mining extracts gold encased in rock, rather than fragments in loose sediment, and produces most of the world's gold. Sometimes open-pit mining is used, such as at the Fort Knox Mine in central Alaska. Barrick Gold Corporation has one of the largest open-pit gold mines in North America located on its Goldstrike mine property in northeastern Nevada. Other gold mines use underground mining, where the ore is extracted through tunnels or shafts. South Africa has the world's deepest hard rock gold mine up to 3,900 metres underground. At such depths, the heat is unbearable for humans, and air conditioning is required for the safety of the workers. The first such mine to receive air conditioning was Robinson Deep, at that time the deepest mine in the world for any mineral.
Byproduct gold mining
Gold is also produced by mining in which it is not the principal product. Large copper mines, such as the Bingham Canyon mine in Utah, often recover considerable amounts of gold and other metals along with copper. Some sand and gravel pits, such as those around Denver, Colorado, may recover small amounts of gold in their washing operations. The largest producing gold mine in the world, the Grasberg mine in Papua, Indonesia, is primarily a copper mine.
Gold ore processing
In placer mines, the gold is recovered by gravity separation. For hard rock mining, other methods are usually used.
Cyanide process
Cyanide extraction of gold may be used in areas where fine gold-bearing rocks are found. Sodium cyanide solution is mixed with finely ground rock that is proven to contain gold or silver, and is then separated from the ground rock as gold cyanide or silver cyanide solution. Zinc is added to precipitate out residual zinc as well as the silver and gold metals. The zinc is removed with sulfuric acid, leaving a silver or gold sludge that is generally smelted into an ingot then shipped to a metals refinery for final processing into 99.9999% pure metals.
Advancements in the 1970's have seen activated carbon used in extracting gold from the leach solution. The gold is absorbed into the porous matrix of the carbon. Activated carbon has so much internal surface area, bthat fifteen grams has the equivalent surface area of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The gold can be removed from the carbon by using a strong solution of caustic soda and cyanide, a process known as elution. Gold is then plated out onto steel wool through electro-winning. Gold specific resins can also be used in place of activated carbon, or where selective separation of gold from copper or other dissolved metals is required.
The technique using dissolution with alkaline cyanide has been highly developed over recent years. It is particularly appropriate for low grade gold and silver ore processing but its use is not restricted to such ores. There are many environmental hazards associated with this extraction method, largely due to the high toxicity of the cyanide compounds involved. A major example of this hazard was demonstrated in the 2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill, when a break in holding pond dam at a mine waste reprocessing facility near Baia Mare in northern Romania released approximately 100,000 cubic meters of waste water contaminated with heavy metal sludge and up to 120 long tons of cyanide into the Tisza River. As a consequence most countries now have strict regulations for cyanide in plant discharges and plants include a specific cyanide destruction step before discharge of tailings to a storage facility.
What is Web Hosting????
Web site hosting service companies on the Internet permit the users to make their web site accessible through the WWW (World Wide Web).
There are huge numbers of companies that offer web space on their server for their customers and also offer Internet connectivity in general in a data center. The main classifications are:
- Free Website Hosting
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In case of free web site hosting, the user has the right to upload his or her web site content on the server space that is provided by the web site hosting company without any cost. This type of web site hosting service is great for people who are new to to internet and plan to get familiar with web site creation and functionality of web servers. On the other hand, to get your web site uploaded on a web space that is provided by a paid web site hosting company, you need to pay the company periodic fees. The fee amount may vary from company to company. Paid web site hosting companies are best suited for professional web site owners. People who need large web space to upload their web sites and who expect a certain amount of web site visitors which is restricted on free hosting accounts to a minimum.
The revenue that the paid web hosting service companies get is through the fee that is paid to the company by the web site owners. In case of free web site hosting companies, the main source of income are the ads and banners that can be placed on their clients web pages.
The main advantage of using a free web site hosting service is that they are free of cost and hence make a perfect choice for people who are new into the business and are just looking to start out. They are perfect for people who just want to display a minimum content on the World Wide Web in small amount of web space. The other advantage of using the free web site hosting service is that most of these companies provide integrated, easy tools to upload the pages on to the hosting account. They do this realizing the fact that the free web site hosting services are generally utilized by the newbies.
There are also certain disadvantages of using the free web site hosting services. When using the free web site hosting service, you are forced to place the ads and banners by the web site hosting company on your web pages. Also the revenue that is obtained by the ads goes to the web site company. In case of paid web site hosting service, ads and banners placed on your web site are according to your will and the revenue of the banners and ads placed on your web site goes in your pocket. Also in some case of free web site hosting, the domain name of your web site starts with the web site hosting company name followed by your web site name. This is not the case of paid web site hosting service. You get a unique web site domain. The web space provided by free web site hosting service is limited whereas in case of paid web site hosting service you can buy the web space according to your requirements.
Title: Global Replication Management in Peer to Peer Network
Level: Masters Degree
Duration: 5 to 6 Months
Base Paper: QOS enhancements for global replication management in peer to peer networks
Journal: Future Generation Computer Systems, Elsevier, Volume 28, Issue 3, March 2012
Abstract: Replica Management is a key issue to reduce the bandwidth consumption, to improve data availability and to maintain data consistency in large distributed systems. Global Replica Management means to maintain the data consistency across the entire network. It is preferable particularly for multi group distributed systems. On the other hand, Global Research Management is not favorable for many applications because a very large number of message passes is needed for replica management processes. In this paper, in order to reduce the number of message passes needed to achieve the efficient Global Research Management strategy, an interconnection structure called the Distributed Spanning Tree has been employed. The application of DST converts the peer network into logical layered structures and thereby provides a hierarchical mechanism for replication management. It is proved that this hierarchical approach improves the data availability and consistency across the entire network. In addition to these, it is also proved that the proposed approach reduces the data latency and the required number of message passes for any specific application in the network.
Note: Sometimes concept implementation is different from the concept in the base paper to show the innovative techniques which are must for any Masters Project.
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Lung's Cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung.
Lung cancer is the second-most common cancer in the United States. Most lung cancer cases are diagnosed after tumor growth has spread beyond the lungs, making it more difficult to treat. But survival rates should increase as researchers improve diagnostic techniques and treatment options. Stats show that about 200,000 Americans having lung cancer are diagnosed annually. Mainly this cancer takes birth due to exposure of asbestos.
The best way to ensure proper treatment is to recognize risk factors and early symptoms. In addition to smoking cigarettes, asbestos exposure is proven to cause both small cell and non-small cell lung cancer. Annually, an estimated 4,800 national lung cancer deaths can be linked to exposure to asbestos, the deadly mineral which also causes mesothelioma.
Types of Lung Cancer
The two main types of lung cancer are small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. Either type may be caused by exposure to asbestos, but there are key differences between the two. The type of lung cancer determines how quickly it will spread, which treatment options will work best and how long a patient is likely to live.
