Mesothelioma Statistics & Facts

Mesothelioma is caused by asbestos exposure that develops cancerous tumors over a span of 10 to 50 years. Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer, accounting for less than 0.2% of all cases. There are multiple types of mesothelioma cancer, such as pleural, peritoneal, pericardial, and testicular. Every year 3,000 patients are diagnosed with, and 2,500 die from mesothelioma in the United States.

Peritoneal mesothelioma has a high survival rate of 92% past one year and a 65% survival rate for five years. Pleural mesothelioma has a rate of 73% of a year and 12% of a 5-year life expectancy. Pericardial mesothelioma has a 51% survival rate of 1 year but typically has a prognosis of 6 months. Testicular mesothelioma has an average life expectancy of 20-23 months.

Mesothelioma is typically diagnosed at age 75 for men and 71 for women. The average mesothelioma life expectancy is 18 to 31 years. From 1999 to 2016, 44,538 men and 13,119 women received a mesothelioma diagnosis in the US. Thirty-seven thousand eight hundred seventy-four of those men and 9,786 of those women passed away from mesothelioma.