Mesothelioma is not very common, (although rates are increasing)
It is usually diagnosed when it is advanced – people may not have symptoms early on and so don't go to their doctor
Statistics by stage aren't readily available because most people don't have surgery and accurate staging needs an operation
There are 2 types of mesothelioma. Pleural mesothelioma has 2 different staging systems and peritoneal mesothelioma has no established staging system.
Overall, both types of mesothelioma have a poor outlook. By the time someone has symptoms and goes to their doctor, the disease is very often advanced. Currently, there are no reliable UK 5 year survival statistics for mesothelioma.
For both types of mesothelioma, patients are often told that they may have about a year to live. But mesothelioma specialists, working in leading cancer centres throughout the world, often report better statistics than this based on clinical trials that they are carrying out. People who can have the mesothelioma surgically removed tend to do better than people who can't have surgery. Some studies seem to show that having radiotherapy, chemotherapy or biological therapies after surgery may increase survival by a few months for some people. But research is continuing to try to improve survival for mesothelioma.
Generally, of all the people diagnosed in the UK with mesothelioma, more than 3 out of 10 men (34%) and about 4 out of 10 women (40%) will be alive 1 year later.
Some longer term statistics are available from the USA where about 2 out of 10 people (20%) will live for at least 2 years after diagnosis. About 8 out of 100 people (8%) will be alive 5 years later or more.
For people who have been diagnosed and treated in the earlier stages of the disease, there is very little information available. But an international report quotes an average survival of 2½ years for people diagnosed at the earliest stage and 12 to 16 months for people diagnosed at the latest stages. So the range of survival times is very wide. It is important to remember that survival depends on other factors as well as stage.
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Factors affecting outlook
Apart from the stage of your cancer, other factors can affect your prognosis. One factor is the type of mesothelioma. People with the epithelial type tend to do better than people with mixed type. The sarcomatous and desmoplastic types can be more difficult to treat and tend to have poorer survival than the other types.
Another factor is how well you are overall. Doctors have a way of measuring this. They call it your 'performance status' or PS. A score of 0 means you are fully active and more or less as you were before your illness. A score of 1 means you cannot carry out heavy physical work, but can do everything else. The scores continue to go up, depending on how much help you need. This is relevant to survival because overall, the fitter people are, the better able they are to withstand their cancer and treatment. We have more information about performance status.
People with normal haemoglobin levels, and normal white blood cell and platelet counts, tend to do better. These tests are a measure of your overall health and the effect the mesothelioma is having on you.
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How do these statistics apply to you
No statistics can tell you exactly what will happen to you. Your cancer is unique. The same type of cancer can grow at different rates in different people for example.
Statistics are not detailed enough to tell you about the different treatments people may have had. And how that treatment may have affected their prognosis. Chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy may help people to live longer as well as relieving symptoms. There are many individual factors that will determine your treatment and prognosis. If you are fit enough to have treatment, you are likely to do better than average, particularly if your cancer is more advanced.
It is important to remember that these statistics are collected from patients treated at least several years ago. Improvements in treatment since then mean that the survival statistics for people now being diagnosed with mesothelioma may be higher.
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Clinical trials
Taking part in clinical trials can help to improve the outlook for people with mesothelioma. There is information about clinical trials in the trials and research section. You can search for trials for mesothelioma on our clinical trials database.