Mesothelioma Death and Mortality Rate
Death rates, also known as mortality rates, provide
valuable information about a cancer's effect on specific geographical
locations and groups of people. Death rate can be explained in several
ways, but is most commonly expressed as the number of deaths per million
people for a specific population. Mesothelioma death rates are often
age-adjusted, which compensates for varying age distributions across the
populations being compared.
Death rate and mortality rate may sound different, but they actually
refer to the same thing: The number of deaths in general, or from a
precise cause, in a specific group of people.
From 1999 to 2010, for example, the age-adjusted death rate for
Americans 25 and older was 12.8 deaths per million people. For
comparison, the country with the highest age-adjusted death rate from
1994 to 2008 was the United Kingdom with 17.8 deaths per million.
Overall, nearly 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year in the United States, which represents 0.02 percent of all U.S. cancer cases.
Mesothelioma Death Rate by Gender, United States, 1999-2010
*Age-adjusted death rate for people 25 and older per 1 million population.
For a variety of reasons, disease specialists did not track the death
rates from asbestos cancers over a long period of time. It wasn't until
1999 that the U.S. government began classifying the diseases as a cause
of death. This was mostly because doctors rarely discovered them until a
post-mortem examination. This was also because pleural mesothelioma is
so rare it often was mistaken for lung cancer or another respiratory
disease.
Now that asbestos cancers are more well-known and diagnosed more
accurately, their mortality rates are coming more into focus. However,
the numbers are not positive, and some evidence suggests the death rates
are decreasing over time.
CDC Database
The most up-to-date information on asbestos-related death
rates comes from CDC WONDER, an online database offered by the United
States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The database
specifies the number of people who died from the disease over an 11-year
period from 1999 to 2010.
Age-adjusted Death Rates
Because the latency period between the first exposure to
asbestos and the diagnosis of a related cancer is usually between 25 and
50 years, the death rates that follow include only people aged 25 years
and older. Death rates are age-adjusted according to the 2000 U.S.
standard population.
Death Rates
-
Mesothelioma Death Rate by State, 1999-2010*
*Deaths per year per 1 million people 25+ years old. Age-adjusted rate per 1 million population.
- From 1999 to 2010, the age-adjusted mesothelioma death rate in the United States was 12.8 deaths per million people.
- In 1999, the adjusted rate was 13.2 deaths per million. The
death rate dropped to 12.3 deaths per million by the end of 2010, a
decline of nearly 7 percent.
- During the 11-year period, 27 states surpassed the national
average. The five states with the highest rates of asbestos cancer
deaths are:
State Mesothelioma Death Rate (1999-2010)
- Maine - 22.5 deaths per million
- Alaska - 21.1 deaths per million
- Washington - 20.3 deaths per million
- Wyoming - 18.6 deaths per million
- New Jersey - 17.8 deaths per million
-
Death Rate by Age, Gender and Race
Asbestos cancer death rates vary greatly by age group. When sorted by
10-year age groups, the crude (not age-adjusted) death rate was highest
among 75-84-year-olds at 72.4 deaths per million. The death rates for
the 25-34-year-old group and the 35-44-year-old group were both fewer
than one death per million.
- The mesothelioma death rate is much higher among men. From 1999
to 2010, the age-adjusted death rate for men was 24.6 deaths per
million, compared with 4.5 deaths per million for women.
- The rate among men fell from 25.5 deaths per million in 1999 to
23 deaths per million in 2010. For women, the death rate fluctuated from
1999-2010, but remained close to this period's average rate of 4.5
deaths per million.
- The rate for whites is more than double that of any other race.
From 1999 to 2010, the age-adjusted death rate among whites was 13.9
deaths per million. The second highest rate was observed in American
Indians or Alaska Natives (5.6 deaths per million), followed by Blacks
or African Americans (5.4 deaths per million) and Asians or Pacific
Islanders (3.3 deaths per million).
- The mesothelioma death rate varies depending on the location of
the primary tumor because of the different incidence rates of the two
main types of mesothelioma. Pleural mesothelioma originates in the
lining of the lungs and accounts for about 80 percent of all
mesothelioma cases. Peritoneal mesothelioma forms in the lining of the
abdomen and makes up about 20 percent of cases. More people die of
pleural mesothelioma because of its higher incidence, which gives the
pleural type a higher mortality rate per million. However, the CDC does
not calculate average mortality rates by type. We don't know the true
death rate for each type of mesothelioma because the CDC rarely records
the specific type on death certificates.
Mortality
-
Mesothelioma Deaths by State, 1999-2010
- From 1999 to 2010, 29,639 people in the United States died of
mesothelioma. The number of deaths rose from 2,342 in 1999 to 2,573 in
2010, an increase of 231 deaths.
- In the majority of cases, death records do not indicate the
exact type or subtype of cancer. From 1999 to 2010, there were 2,175
deaths attributed to pleural mesothelioma, 1,071 attributed to
peritoneal mesothelioma and 31 attributed to pericardial mesothelioma.
There were 3,724 deaths from mesothelioma of other sites.
- In all, that is 9,001 deaths by all types. By contrast, 22,638 cases had an unspecified site of origin.
- Although the United States no longer mines asbestos, a wide
variety of industries and occupations used the toxic mineral throughout
the 20th century. Asbestos use in the United States peaked at 803,000
metric tons in 1973 and then declined to approximately 1,700 metric tons
in 2007.
- The prevalence of asbestos use during the 20th century now poses
serious risks, including death, for 1.3 million U.S. construction and
general industry workers. The five most at-risk industries are ship and
boat building and repairing, industrial and miscellaneous chemicals,
petroleum refining, electric light and power and construction. Occupations
such as plumbers, pipefitters and boiler makers, mechanical engineers,
electricians and elementary school teachers are also at high risk.
- Research shows that the incidence of asbestos cancer in the
United States likely peaked in 2010. People exposed to asbestos in the
1970s, when the U.S. government first began restricting asbestos use,
continue to develop mesothelioma because of the disease's decades-long latency period.
-
Mortality by Age, Gender and Race
- The majority of people who died of asbestos-related cancer from
1999 to 2010 were between the ages of 75 and 84 (11,170 deaths),
followed by ages 65 to 74 (8,637 deaths). There were only 91
mesothelioma deaths among 25-34-year-olds.
- Men are diagnosed far more often than women. From 1999 to 2010,
23,784 men accounted for 80.2 percent of related deaths in the United
States.
- By race, whites comprised nearly 95 percent of deaths from
asbestos cancers in the 11-year period, with 28,639 deaths. Blacks and
African Americans, the next largest racial group for mesothelioma
deaths, comprised nearly 3.9 percent of all deaths with 1,149.
- Asbestos cancer cases among males peaked from 2008 to 2010, with
more than 2,000 cases reported per year. The CDC predicts the number of
cases should be on the decline, with an expected return to background
levels by 2055. Mesothelioma cases among women are expected to increase
slightly.
Research
and extensive studies are conducted daily to improve treatments for mesothelioma patients and search for a cure for the cancer. Through medical advances and developments in clinical trials,
more options will continue to be available to combat mesothelioma and
improve the mesothelioma death rate in the United States.
Number of U.S. Malignant Mesothelioma Deaths 2004 - 2010
|
2004
|
2005
|
2006
|
2007
|
2008
|
2009
|
2010
|
Total
|
25-34
|
9
|
6
|
11
|
8
|
9
|
5
|
10
|
58
|
35-44
|
40
|
31
|
39
|
23
|
28
|
18
|
25
|
204
|
45-54
|
119
|
113
|
102
|
109
|
95
|
103
|
95
|
736
|
55-64
|
385
|
416
|
333
|
371
|
371
|
365
|
325
|
2,566
|
65-74
|
645
|
699
|
705
|
664
|
737
|
748
|
762
|
4,980
|
75-84
|
1,028
|
963
|
941
|
921
|
945
|
945
|
981
|
6,724
|
85+
|
277
|
325
|
319
|
333
|
350
|
421
|
375
|
2,400
|
Male
|
2,009
|
2,018
|
1,972
|
1,937
|
2,008
|
2,077
|
2,043
|
14,064
|
Female
|
494
|
535
|
478
|
492
|
527
|
528
|
530
|
3,584
|
White
|
2,391
|
2,423
|
2,308
|
2,298
|
2,397
|
2,489
|
2,436
|
16,742
|
Black/ African American
|
89
|
103
|
121
|
92
|
98
|
79
|
106
|
688
|
Asian/ Pacific Islander
|
18
|
23
|
13
|
28
|
29
|
30
|
24
|
165
|
Is There a Mesothelioma Cure?
No cure for mesothelioma
has been discovered, but advancements in treatment are helping people
to live longer with this cancer.
Current therapies and clinical trials are helping many people with early
stage mesothelioma live at least three, five or more years. Some
late-stage mesothelioma patients who participate in clinical trials are
living around three years with innovative therapies like immunotherapy.
People in otherwise good health with up to stage III mesothelioma may
qualify for multimodal therapy that pairs aggressive surgery with
chemotherapy and radiation therapy. This combined approach attacks the
cancer multiple ways to improve treatment results. Many people who
receive multimodal therapy for mesothelioma live longer than the average
one-year survival rate.