The number of cases of asbestos related cancers, not including the very aggressive and fatal type of cancer known as mesothelioma, continue to increase each year. This is due to the exposure of individuals to asbestos between the 1930's and the 1980's which are now developing the symptoms leading to the diagnosis. There are likely many hundreds of other cases of cancers that are diagnosed each year that should be linked to asbestos exposure but are not due to incomplete patient histories or the patient not realizing that they were, perhaps up to 50 year earlier, exposed to asbestos. The actual number of cases of asbestos related cancers is impossible to accurately report since the diagnosis of breast, prostate, gastrointestinal, colorectal or even esophageal cancer may not include any questions about possible asbestos exposure in the patient's past. All of these types of cancers have been linked to asbestos exposure in some individuals. Further complicating this research is the fact that the airborne particles, under the right weather conditions, may travel long distances before being inhaled by a person, further reducing the likelihood or tracing the eventual development of cancer back to the actual cause.