Skip to main content
PMC home page
Occupational and Environmental Medicine logoLink to Occupational and Environmental Medicine
. 2000 Jul;57(7):488–494. doi: 10.1136/oem.57.7.488

Future trends in mortality of French men from mesothelioma

A Banaei 1, B Auvert 1, M Goldberg 1, A Gueguen 1, D Luce 1, S Goldberg 1
PMCID: PMC1739977  PMID: 10854503

Abstract

OBJECTIVES—Previous projections of mortality from mesothelioma among French men have used the age-generation method, based on the Poisson regression model. In this study an alternative method to model mortality from mesothelioma was used to predict its future trend: this method was based on the risk function that links this mortality to past exposure to asbestos, combined with population exposure data.
METHOD—Data on past French asbestos imports were used to model the overall past exposure to asbestos in men and assess two extreme scenarios (optimistic and pessimistic) for its future trends. The number of male deaths occurring between the ages of 50 and 79, from 1997-2050, was then calculated with the risk function for mesothelioma.
RESULTS—The results showed that mortality from mesothelioma among French men aged 50-79 will continue to increase, reaching a peak averaging between 1140 (optimistic scenario) and 1300 deaths (pessimistic scenario) annually around the years 2030 and 2040, respectively. No preventive measures applied now will affect this trend before then. These results are similar to those of two other predictions of mortality from mesothelioma among French men: a peak around 2030 of 800-1600 deaths annually among men aged 25-89 years, and a peak around 2020 of 1550 deaths annually among men aged 40-84.
CONCLUSIONS—Our results indicate that between 1997 and 2050, the most optimistic and pessimistic trends of future exposure will lead to the deaths from mesothelioma of between 44 480 and 57 020 men, with a corresponding loss of from 877 200 to 1 171 500 person-years of life.


Keywords: mesothelioma; risk function; mortality trends; prediction; France

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (220.3 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Berry G. Prediction of mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis in former Wittenoom asbestos workers. Br J Ind Med. 1991 Dec;48(12):793–802. doi: 10.1136/oem.48.12.793. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Goldberg M., Banaei A., Goldberg S., Auvert B., Luce D., Guéguen A. Past occupational exposure to asbestos among men in France. Scand J Work Environ Health. 2000 Feb;26(1):52–61. doi: 10.5271/sjweh.510. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Hughes J. M., Weill H. Asbestos exposure--quantitative assessment of risk. Am Rev Respir Dis. 1986 Jan;133(1):5–13. doi: 10.1164/arrd.1986.133.1.5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Iwatsubo Y., Pairon J. C., Boutin C., Ménard O., Massin N., Caillaud D., Orlowski E., Galateau-Salle F., Bignon J., Brochard P. Pleural mesothelioma: dose-response relation at low levels of asbestos exposure in a French population-based case-control study. Am J Epidemiol. 1998 Jul 15;148(2):133–142. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009616. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Peto J., Decarli A., La Vecchia C., Levi F., Negri E. The European mesothelioma epidemic. Br J Cancer. 1999 Feb;79(3-4):666–672. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6690105. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Peto J. Dose-response relationships for asbestos-related disease: implications for hygiene standards. Part II. Mortality. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1979;330:195–203. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1979.tb18720.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Peto J., Hodgson J. T., Matthews F. E., Jones J. R. Continuing increase in mesothelioma mortality in Britain. Lancet. 1995 Mar 4;345(8949):535–539. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(95)90462-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Peto J., Seidman H., Selikoff I. J. Mesothelioma mortality in asbestos workers: implications for models of carcinogenesis and risk assessment. Br J Cancer. 1982 Jan;45(1):124–135. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1982.15. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Price B. Analysis of current trends in United States mesothelioma incidence. Am J Epidemiol. 1997 Feb 1;145(3):211–218. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009093. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Robertson C., Boyle P. Age-period-cohort analysis of chronic disease rates. I: Modelling approach. Stat Med. 1998 Jun 30;17(12):1305–1323. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0258(19980630)17:12<1305::aid-sim853>3.0.co;2-w. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. SELIKOFF I. J., CHURG J., HAMMOND E. C. RELATION BETWEEN EXPOSURE TO ASBESTOS AND MESOTHELIOMA. N Engl J Med. 1965 Mar 18;272:560–565. doi: 10.1056/NEJM196503182721104. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Occupational and Environmental Medicine are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES