Pleural Plaques

What are Pleural Plaques?

Pleural plaques are areas of scarring (fibrosis) of the lung’s outer lining (parietal pleura), the lining next to the chest wall. Sometimes they affect the inner lining (visceral pleura) too.

Plaques may affect both lungs. As the years pass, the plaques become calcified, which causes them to harden and thicken.

Exposure to asbestos fibres is the leading cause of pleural plaques. The usual setting where people were so frequently exposed to asbestos that it caused pleural plaques was the workplace.

Pleural plaques are benign, that is, non-cancerous. They are also pre-malignant, meaning they will not turn into cancer.

Asthma & Lung UK estimates that there may be as many as 90,000 new cases of pleural plaques diagnosed every year.

However, this figure lacks the same degree of accuracy as those relating to other asbestos diseases.

There is a simple reason why this is the case – in many instances, people who develop pleural plaques go through their lives without ever realising they have an asbestos condition. Plaques rarely cause any symptoms whatsoever.

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How long does it take to get pleural plaques?

Plaques usually develop between 20 and 30 years after exposure to asbestos. This period is called the latency period and is the reason that despite asbestos being banned over 30 years ago, people are still getting diagnosed with asbestos disease today.

How are pleural plaques diagnosed?

Plaques will show up on both chest x-rays and a CT scan. However, this asbestos condition does not produce symptoms in all but the rarest of cases. Therefore, most plaques cases are only diagnosed when the patient undergoes a scan for other reasons, i.e., they have been experiencing symptoms associated with another type of lung disease, e.g., COPD (often caused by smoking).

Should I be worried if I get diagnosed with pleural plaques?

People with pleural plaques often live a long life and then die without ever knowing they had plaques.

Nevertheless, a diagnosis of plaques may cause you distress because you will be told by the health professional that you have an asbestos-related condition. Immediately alarm bells will ring because you have heard of the more severe types of asbestos disease.

Your healthcare professional should explain the differences between pleural plaques and other types of asbestos-related illnesses. They will also tell you that although plaques indicate that you were exposed to asbestos, they are not themselves a cause for concern.

What is the treatment for pleural plaques?

Plaques don’t require treatment because there are rarely any symptoms, and the condition will not worsen to the extent of producing symptoms in the future.

If someone is diagnosed with plaques, their doctor will undoubtedly take the opportunity to advise them to quit smoking, take regular exercise and eat healthily.

Often the shock of being diagnosed with an asbestos-related illness as benign as pleural plaques can be why someone gives up smoking and takes up exercise!

Can I still get another type of asbestos disease if I have pleural plaques?

Plaques do not offer any immunity from getting another type of asbestos disease, and their presence does indicate asbestos exposure.

However, it usually takes lower levels of asbestos exposure to get pleural plaques than it does to get asbestosis, mesothelioma, or asbestos lung cancer.

Several factors together determine whether someone gets a particular type of asbestos disease, and these include:

• Level of asbestos exposure.
• Duration of the latency period.
• Number of years of exposure (cumulative exposure).

For this reason, someone with pleural plaques may get asbestosis in later years. However, it is not inevitable they will, nor would it be a case of the pleural plaques turning into a different type of asbestos disease.

Equally, it does not follow that if a person has plaques, they will later develop another asbestos-related illness.

The critical factor is developing symptoms. If you’ve been diagnosed with pleural plaques and at a later date you begin to suffer chest pain, a persistent cough, wheezing or weight loss (or a mixture of symptoms), you should make an appointment to visit your GP for a check-up. Your doctor will probably send you for an x-ray to rule out the possibility of another asbestos illness.

After a diagnosis of pleural plaques, your doctor will want to see you regularly, in any event, to keep an eye on your condition and to look out for symptoms of other lung disorders, including asbestos-related ones.

What’s the difference between pleural plaques and pleural thickening?

People with pleural plaques often confuse their condition with pleural thickening. They are not in the same condition, and plaques will not turn into pleural thickening.

Plaques are lesions of scar tissue that are ‘dotted’ around the lung’s linings.

On the other hand, pleural thickening is marked out by its extensive thick lung scarring, which causes reduced lung function.

Pleural thickening is a disease with symptoms that can progress to be serious. Extreme breathlessness is not uncommon with pleural thickening and may require the patient to have oxygen therapy.

To reiterate, in all but some cases, plaques do not cause any discomfort, show no symptoms and do not cause lifestyle restrictions.

Another difference to highlight is that you can bring an asbestos disease compensation claim against a former employer if you have pleural thickening in certain circumstances.

However, due to a House of Lords court case in 2008 and subsequent government legislation, claiming compensation for pleural plaques in England and Wales is no longer possible.

Taking out a pleural plaques compensation claim in Scotland is still possible. Scotland has its own legal system, and in 2009 the Scottish government passed an act of parliament that confirmed the right to pursue pleural plaques claims if the person was exposed to asbestos in Scotland.

You can learn more about claiming asbestos compensation in our Legal Advice section.

Pleural Plaques Claims UK

At Bridge McFarland LLP, managers of the Asbestos Awareness website, we have a dedicated team of knowledgeable solicitors with special experience in helping clients achieve compensation following a diagnosis of pleural plaques.

Asbestos Awareness is dedicated to informing, educating, and supporting people in relation to asbestos-related diseases.

For further information, or to speak to a member of our experienced medical personal injury solicitors, please call 0800 987 8809. Alternatively, you can fill in this contact form.

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