PLEURAL MESOTHELIOMA - A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS BASED ON A CASE-CONTROLSTUDY AND MORTALITY DATA IN ILE-DE-FRANCE, 1987-1990

Incidence rates of pleural mesothelioma in Ile de France were examined for the period 1987-1990, on the basis of information collected in a case-control study. This study was designed to include all new cases o f pleural mesothelioma occurring in the region. On the other hand, mor tality rates from pleural malignancies in the same region were examine d on the basis of death certificates recorded by INSERM for the same p eriod. A large difference was found between the two types of data. Ave rage annual incidence rates were 7.5 per million among men and 1.6 per million among women. Average annual mortality rates due to primary pl eural malignancies were 25.2 per million in males and 8.9 per million in females. This study confirms discordances between incidence and mor tality data for pleural malignancies already reported in several count ries. However, contrasting with some previous reports, the annual mort ality rate from pleural malignancies was higher than the incidence rat e of mesothelioma in this study. This emphasizes the usefulness of a s pecific investigation to explain such discordances, prior to compariso n of data from one country to another. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.