Mesothelioma causes the protective lining or mesothelium that covers all the major body organs, to function abnormally and invade into the nearby main body organs like the heart, lungs or abdomen and damage them. There are mainly three types of mesothelioma - pleural mesothelioma, peritoneal mesothelioma and pericardial mesothelioma. Of the three types, pleural mesothelioma is the most common type that affects the lining of the lungs and is found to occur in human beings. The rarest malignant cancer is the pericardial mesothelioma which affects the lining around the heart. The peritoneal mesothelioma is found to affect the lining of the abdominal cavity.

Sympotoms

Mesothelioma would have taken most of its toll on the human body before the symptoms occur. The average survival period of the people diagnosed to suffer from malignant mesothelioma would be about one year. The symptoms of mesothelioma are similar to other common diseases like fever, nausea, sudden weight loss, chest pain, breathlessness and hence it is difficult to diagnose the cause of the above diseases.