Symptoms of Mesothelioma

Recent American and British studies indicate that the global incidence of mesothelioma is in the range of 2.2 per million inhabitants. In Italy , the incidence rate of this disease is 1, and 0.5 new cases a year per 100,000 females and males. Nevertheless, there are areas where the incidence rate is much higher. For example, Casalese is a region where every year the number of new cases per 100,000 people increases by 16 (men), and 13 (women). Such deviation from the national average can be explained by a very large local factory that until recently produced materials containing asbestos. Since 1970, Mesothelioma has, without doubt, become a bigger problem and numerous observations suggest that the incidence of this disease is destined to increase. The current Italian legislature has banned the industrial use of asbestos, but since the latency period of the disease can last over thirty years, the benefits of such preventive measures will be only seen in the future. A re-evaluation of the sources of asbestos exposure is being carried out, and results show that they are much more widespread than thought in the past.

MMe is a serious disease which, by the time it is diagnosed, has often reached an advanced stage. The average survival rate is one year, though in some cases it may vary slightly, depending on the type of tumor or the stage of the disease. Nonetheless, early diagnosis and aggressive treatment can lengthen the survival rate to 2 years in 50% of cases, and 5 years in 20% of them. When we talk about the survival rate of 2 or 5 years, we refer to the number of patients still alive having being diagnosed. Some of them will obviously live longer than that. These general parameters are used as a standard reference guide when discussing the prognosis of illnesses such as tumors. These calculations do not take into account the number of patients who died because of other illnesses.