Mesothelioma Statistics

Knowing about mesothelioma statistics and asbestos exposure can help you determine if you might have been put at risk at some point in your life. Key statistics such as, the number of people diagnosed with mesothelioma each year, the age of those people, where they live and the treatment they used, can help you better understand the disease and make more educated decisions about your health.

Asbestos Exposure

Asbestos Fibers

The primary cause of mesothelioma is inhaling or swallowing airborne asbestos, a naturally occurring mineral fiber.

2 to 10%

of people with heavy, prolonged exposure to asbestos will develop pleural mesothelioma — the most common type.

11 Million

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that 11 million people were exposed to asbestos between 1940 and 1978.

Most Common Ways of Being Exposed

Military
Products
Occupation
Environment

20-50 Years

for Symptoms to Develop

Mesothelioma symptoms typically appear several decades after an exposure to asbestos. The gap between the first exposure and the appearance of symptoms is called the latency period.

Symptoms by Type

Symptoms vary depending on the cancer’s location. Mesothelioma can be challenging to diagnose because early symptoms are usually mild or nonexistent.

Symptom

Pleural

Peritoneal

Pericardial

Abdominal Distention

Abdominal Swelling or Tenderness

Anemia

Loss of Appetite

Bowel Obstruction

Chest Pains

Chills

Cough

Couging up Blood

Difficulty Breathing

Fatigue

Feeling of Fullness

Fever

Fluid Buildup

Lumps Under Abdominal Skin

Lumps Under Skin of the Chest

Heart Failure

Heart Palpitations

Hernias

Irregular Heartbeat

Murmurs

Night Sweats

Pain

Pressure on the Heart

Reduced Chest Expansion

Shortness of Breath

Vomiting

Weight Loss

Wheezing

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Each Year There Are

2,000 to 3,000

New Cases of Mesothelioma

Gender

Because men are exposed to asbestos more often, they are 4.6 times more likely to be diagnosed with this cancer.

Race

95 percent of all mesothelioma patients are white. Hispanics are diagnosed more frequently than blacks or Asians.

Age

For people older than 60 years of age, the risk of developing the disease is 10 times higher than that of people younger than 40.

Where Mesothelioma Occurs

Statistically speaking, most mesothelioma cases appear in the pleura surrounding the lungs; this can be as high as 70-90%. However, there are still 10-30% of cases that appear in the peritoneum, about 1% that appear in the pericardium and less than 1% that appear in the tunica vaginalis.

70-90%

1) Pleura

1%

2) Pericardium

Less Than 1%

4) Tunica Vaginalis

10-30%

3) Peritoneum

1) Pleura

70-90%

2) Pericardium

1%

3) Peritoneum

10-30%

4) Tunica Vaginalis

< 1%

Mesothelioma Claimed More Than

37,000

Lives in the United States From 1999 to 2013

Mesothelioma Deaths by State, 1999-2013

2,497 People

Died of Mesothelioma in 2013.

Treatment Options

Treatment for this cancer may involve surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Patients can also enroll in clinical trials to try experimental therapies.

Multimodal Therapy

Research has shown improved survival with multimodal therapy, an approach that combines two or more treatments. A 2007 study on four-modality therapy reported a median survival of 26 months.

Clinical Trials

Human studies called clinical trials give patients access to the latest breakthroughs in treatment. As of April 2015, researchers have conducted nearly 250 clinical trials for mesothelioma worldwide.

Top Five Countries for Mesothelioma Clinical Trials

Top 5 Country Mesothelioma Clinical Trials Bar Chart

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Survival

Statistics on the outcomes of many past patients give today’s patients a general idea of their outlook. On average, 40 percent of pleural mesothelioma patients survive at least one year after starting treatment. By year five, survival drops to 8 percent.

mesothelioma surival rate in years diagram

Gender

Research shows that women diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma experience nearly three-fold better survival than men. One study reported that 13.4 percent of women survive for five years after treatment, compared to only 4.5 percent of men.

Age

Overall, younger patients have a significantly higher survival rate than older patients. More than 50 percent of patients diagnosed before the age of 50 survive one year, while less than 33 percent of those 75 or older survive the same amount of time.

Race

Regardless of race, one-year survival is about the same. From three years on, survival is slightly worse for whites. National Cancer Institute data shows that five-year survival among whites is 7.6 percent, compared to 12.3 percent for blacks.

Survival by Stage

Doctors use a four-stage system to describe how far the cancer has advanced within the body. Patients diagnosed at stage I have the best outlook, while survival is worst at stage IV.

Sources

American Cancer Society. (2013, December 19). Malignant mesothelioma. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/cid/documents/webcontent/003119-pdf.pdf
U.S. National Institutes of Health. (2014, October). Search of mesothelioma – Results on map. Retrieved from http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results/map?cond=mesothelioma
Taioli, E., Wolf, A., Camacho-Rivera, M., & Flores, R. (2014, June 11). Women with malignant pleural mesothelioma have a threefold better survival rate than men. Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 98(3), 1020-1024. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.athoracsur.2014.04.040
Cancer Research UK. (2014, July 10). Statistics and outlook for mesothelioma. Retrieved from http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/type/mesothelioma/treatment/statistics-and-outlook-for-mesothelioma
Neumann, V. et al. (2013). Malignant pleural mesothelioma. Deutsches Arzteblatt International, 110(18), 319-326. doi: 10.3238/arztebl.2013.0319
Porpodis, K. et al. (2013, September).Malignant pleural mesothelioma: Current and future perspectives. Journal of Thoracic Disease, 5(Suppl 4), S397–S406. doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2013.08.08
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. (2012). Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2010 on CDC WONDER Online Database. Retrieved from http://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html
Robinson, B.M. (2012). Malignant pleural mesothelioma: An epidemiological perspective. Annals of Cardiothoracic Surgery, 1(4), 491-496. doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2225-319X.2012.11.04
Weder, W., & Opitz, I. (2012, November). Multimodality therapy for malignant pleural mesothelioma. Annals of Cardiothoracic Surgery, 1(4), 502–507. doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2225-319X.2012.11.12
Delgermaa, V. et al. (2011, June 15). Global mesothelioma deaths reported to the World Health Organization between 1994 and 2008. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 89, 716-724C. doi: 10.2471/BLT.11.086678
Park, E. et al. (2011). Global Magnitude of reported and unreported mesothelioma. Environmental Health Perspectives, 119, 514-518. http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1002845
Lucchi, M. et al. (2007). Four-modality therapy in malignant pleural mesothelioma: A phase II study. J Thorac Oncol., 2(3), 237-42. doi: 10.1097/JTO.0b013e318031d05c
Pass, H., Vogelzang, N., & Carbone, M. Malignant Mesothelioma: Advances in Pathogenesis, Diagnosis and Translational Therapies. Springer: New York, 2005.
Stayner, L., Welch, L.S., & Lemen, R. (2013). The worldwide pandemic of asbestos-related diseases. Annual Review of Public Health, 34, 205-216. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031811-124704
World Health Organization. (2017, August). Asbestos: Elimination of asbestos-related diseases. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs343/en/
Mazurek, J. et al. (2017). Malignant mesothelioma mortality - United States, 1999-2015. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6608a3.htm
Odgerel, C. et al. (2017). Estimation of the global burden of mesothelioma deaths from incomplete national mortality data. Occup Environ Med., 74, 851-858. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2017-104298

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Asbestos Exposure

Asbestos Fibers

2 to 10%

11 Million

Most Common Ways of Being Exposed

20-50 Years

for Symptoms to Develop

Symptoms by Type

Get a FREE guide on mesothelioma, treatment options and more.

Each Year There Are

2,000 to 3,000

New Cases of Mesothelioma

Gender

Race

Age

Where Mesothelioma Occurs

70-90%

1) Pleura

1%

2) Pericardium

Less Than 1%

4) Tunica Vaginalis

10-30%

3) Peritoneum

1) Pleura

70-90%

2) Pericardium

1%

3) Peritoneum

10-30%

4) Tunica Vaginalis

< 1%

Mesothelioma Claimed More Than

37,000

Lives in the United States From 1999 to 2013

Mesothelioma Deaths by State, 1999-2013

2,497 People

Died of Mesothelioma in 2013.

Treatment Options

Multimodal Therapy

Clinical Trials

Top Five Countries for Mesothelioma Clinical Trials

Get the Treatment You Deserve.

Survival

Gender

Age

Race

Survival by Stage

Sources

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