My Father has just been diagnosed with GIST (gastro intestinal
stromaal tumor, seemingly quite rare). We're looking for eviidence
that the cause may be asbesos related, as he was a fiefghter from
1952-1963, when asbestos  lined suits  were  the  norm. Any assistance
you may provide will be greatly appreciaated.  Sincerely, A Loving
Daughter

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Request for Question Clarification by librariankt-ga on 13 Oct 2003 10:16 PDT

Hi Trishaswell,

I'm very sorry to hear about your father.

I've done a search of the PubMed MEDLINE literature database for
gastrointestinal cancers and asbestos. I found more than 100 that have
to do with this general classification of cancer and asbestos.  Some
of them talk about mesothelioma, but most do not.

I am not sure from your question whether this list of articles
satisfies your need.  I think that if you're looking for a legal
basis, these articles will make your lawyer very happy.  On the other
hand, if you want to understand what's going on - and thus don't want
the clinical trials - please let me know so that I can look for that
kind of information.

In the meantime, here's a link to the search I did on PubMed (a free
database from the National Library of Medicine):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=search&db=pubmed&term="Gastrointestinal+Neoplasms"[MH]+AND+"Asbestos"[MeSH]

Please let me know if this answers your question or if you need more
information.

librariankt

Hi 

Asbestos, bad as it is, usually has to be inhaled to cause problems,
and the cancer associated with it is a lung cancer, mesothelioma. 
Wearing an asbestos suit should cause no problems, as long as it isn't
ground up and inhaled.

Being a firefighter exposes one to all sorts of nasty chemicals,
however, that likely will lead to cancer in any organ system that you
could imagine.

Sorry to hear about your father.

synarchy

It sounds to me like your father wore an "asbestos lined suit". This
is not a suit to protect you from the asbestos fibers, but a suit that
is actually made from asbestos. If a person is wearing an asbestos
lined suit, the chances of that person inhaling some of the deadly
fibers are very good. The gestation cycles for many asbestos related
diseases is 20-30 years. It is very possible that the asbestos caused
your fathers cancer. The most common forms of asbestos related cancers
are asbestosis and mesothelioma.