Pleural Mesothelioma

The tiny carbon nanotubes are being evaluated for use in numerous products and services, from sports equipment to medical applications, but many things still unknown about the health effects that have these nanotubes.
Now a study from the State University of North Carolina, Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (one of the National Institutes of Health in the U.S.) indicates that these nanotubes can affect breathing the outer lining of the lung, although the effects of long-term exposure are not clear yet.

In a study with mice, James Bonner, a professor of environmental and molecular toxicology at the State University of North Carolina, and his team investigated what happens when inhaling carbon nanotubes multiple wall. Specifically, they wanted to determine whether nanotubes could reach the pleura mesothelioma, the tissue covering the walls of the chest cavity and surface of the lungs.

This tissue is affected by exposure to certain types of asbestos fibers that cause the deadly cancer called mesothelioma. The researchers observed the result of inhalation exposure and found that inhaled nanotubes they are capable of reaching the pleura mesothelioma and cause adverse health effects.

The short-term experiments conducted in this investigation we can draw conclusions about the effects of inhalation of nanotubes in the long term, such as cancer. However, inhaled nanotubes clearly reach above the tissue and produce a pathological reaction at the surface of the pleura, causing fibrosis.