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.