MESOTHELIOMA IN MONTANA

Death certificates and tumor registry reports are two sources of information that can be used to learn about mesothelioma in Montana.

Death certificates have been collected by Montana’s Office of Vital Statistics since the 1880s. More recent death certificates have information on age, sex, place of residence, and type of employment, in addition to cause of death.

The Montana Central Tumor Registry was established in 1979. This registry holds information on people with diagnosed cancers, including their age, sex, and place of residence. The combination of these two data sources allows a more complete understanding of mesothelioma than either would provide alone.

By combining information from both the Montana Central Tumor Registry and Montana Death Registry, 200 Montanans were found who had been diagnosed with or died of mesothelioma between 1979 and 2002. Individuals in both registries were counted only once. These people lived throughout the state, in counties with asbestos and vermiculite mines and in counties without mines.

Neither the tumor registry nor death certificates record time or place of asbestos exposure, so it is unknown whether these people were exposed to asbestos before they developed the disease.