Mesothelioma Incedences
Even though the rate of reported incidences has increased in the past 20 years, mesothelioma is still a relatively rare type of cancer. The incidence rate for this disease is only one out of 1,000,000 people. With that being said it was estimated that the incidence rate may have peaked at 15 in 1,000,000 people in the United States in 2004. This disease can appear in both men and woman at any age, but numbers show that mesothelioma occurs more often in men than women and that risk increases with age.
Between 1940 and 1979 approximately 27.5 million people were exposed to asbestos in the United States. Also between 1973 and 1984 the increase in the diagnoses of pleural mesothelioma tripled in caucasian males. From 1980 to the late 1990s the death rate in the United States from mesothelioma increased from 2,000 people a year to 3,000, with men being four times more likely to develop it than women. These rates may not be totally accurate though because it is possible that many cases of mesothelioma is misdiagnosed as adenocarcinoma of the lung, which is difficult to tell apart from mesothelioma.
