A Comprehensive Review for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

Malignant pleural mesothelioma: current and future perspectives

In the United States, A Review for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma and MPM occurs in approximately2,500 persons per year, with nearly 200 individuals diagnosed in Florida annually, and 19% are women. Almost 72,000 cases are expected to occur in the United States in the next 20 years. In Western Europe, 5,000 patients die of the disease each year. Worldwide, the incidence is increasing and it is expected to peak in the year 2020. Nevertheless, most physicians will encounter MPM only a few times in their careers. Historically, the untreated median survival has only been 6 months, which explains the palliative approach taken by the oncologists treating patients with MPM.

Malignant mesothelioma was first recognized in 1870,3 but the link between asbestos and MPM was not discovered until 1960 in South Africa when the first convincing evidence of a link between malignant mesothelioma and both occupational and incidental asbestos exposure was reported. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that mesotheliomas and lung cancer were considered separate entities.Due to the extraordinary fire-resistant properties of asbestos, this substance was widely used in the United States and Europe in an uncontrolled fashion, mostly in the shipbuilding

and construction industries, between the 1940s and 1979 when the US government curtailed its use. During that time, an estimated 40% of the entire workforce, or about 27 million individuals, were exposed to asbestos.

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Although its industrial use was largely eliminated, asbestos is still present in countless buildings where it was commonly used as insulation and a fire retardant. Manmade and natural disasters that destroy these building could therefore still expose millions to asbestos. An estimated 10 million New Yorkers were possibly exposed to this carcinogen during the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001, where dust laden with asbestos filled the air.