Pleural Mesothelioma Rate

The most common form of the disease

Mesothelioma is a relatively rare form of cancer, diagnosed in about 3,000 people in the United States each year.  There are three main types of mesothelioma—pleural, peritoneal, and pericardial.  Of these, pleural is the most common type of mesothelioma.  Pleural mesothelioma accounts for more than 65 percent of total cases. Peritoneal mesothelioma cases account for 25 to 30 percent of all cases, and pericardial mesothelioma is extremely rare.

Rates for men and women differ based on type

Overall, the number of cases of mesothelioma is men is four times greater than that of cases diagnosed in women.  According to a study by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the frequency of each type of mesothelioma differs between men and women. ASCO reported the following breakdown of frequencies for the various types of mesothelioma by sex:

Mesothelioma Site	Men	Women
Pleura	90.2%	71.1%
Abdominal cavity	8.3%	24.3%
Genital region	0.7%	1.5%
Heart and other	0.4%	1.6%

So, although men are at higher risk of developing mesothelioma overall, women are at higher risk for pericardial (heart) and peritoneal (abdomen) mesothelioma diagnoses.  Further, because it is difficult to distinguish between mesothelial tissues of the peritoneum and tissues of the ovary, peritoneal mesothelioma in women is sometimes misdiagnosed as ovarian cancer, which is treated very differently.

Staging and treatment

Because the number of cases of mesothelioma among men is four times as great as the number of cases diagnosed in women and because about 90 percent of all cases in men are pleural, this all but ensures that the pleural type dominates not only the statistics, but also the attention of doctors and researchers.  Women should be aware that the staging protocols for determining how far the disease has spread are all based on the pleural type of mesothelioma. Treatment plans and modalities are almost all tested and built to combat pleural mesothelioma.