DEMOGRAPHICS OF MESOTHELIOMA PATIENTS IN MONTANA?

The number of people with mesothelioma identified in Montana was 15 from 1979 to 1982, and 55 from 1999 to 2002. The population of Montana increased by 14% in this period.

A comparison of national data to the combined Montana sample is not possible because no national database has used these methods to combine tumor and death registry records. However, it is possible to compare Montana Central Tumor Registry records with those from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registry.

SEER is a group of selected tumor registries around the country supported by the National Cancer Institute. The age-adjusted rate for mesothelioma in the SEER registries has remained relatively constant over the past 20 years. The SEER registries reported about one person with mesothelioma for every 100,000 people each year from 1979 to 2002.

Among the 200 people with mesothelioma in Montana, 178 were reported to the Montana Central Tumor Registry. The age-adjusted rate of mesothelioma in the Montana Central Tumor Registry tripled from 1979 to 2002. In 1979, 0.4 per 100,000 Montanans were diagnosed with mesothelioma. By 2002, 1.2 per 100,000 people in Montana were diagnosed with mesothelioma. These rates come from small numbers of people with mesothelioma, and much of this variation may be due to chance.

Since mesothelioma develops very slowly, most people are not diagnosed until they are over 60 years old. The median age at diagnosis for Montanans with mesothelioma was 70 years for men and 71 years for women. Since mesothelioma may take 20 to 40 years to develop15, it is not often found in younger age groups.

The vast majority (81%) of people with mesothelioma in Montana were over 60 years of age when they were diagnosed. More than three-quarters (78%) of the Montanans diagnosed with mesothelioma were men.

The length of survival from time of diagnosis could be calculated for 172 Montanans with mesothelioma who died prior to 2002. The median length of survival was 5.5 months; 5.4 months for the 135 men and 5.6 months for the 37 women.