Because it has a lengthy latency period and is primarily associated with industrial exposure, mesothelioma is a form of asbestos cancer that is usually suffered by older men; average age at the time of diagnosis is sixty-five.
Malignant mesothelioma is extremely rare in children, but has been known to occur. A study carried out and published in the late 1980s examined eighty children who had been diagnosed with mesothelioma; however, only five percent of these subjects had a known history of asbestos exposure. Of the eighty children studied, four had been knowingly exposed to asbestos, while one had received radiation treatments and another had suffered from prenatal exposure to a drug known as isoniazid, which is used in the treatment of tuberculosis.
It was later determined that only ten of the children actually had mesothelioma cancer; others had been diagnosed with other forms of cancer. Six were boys, and eight had the pleural variety. Two of the children were mesothelioma survivors until the age of nineteen.
In another study, the cases and death certificates of 42,597 children who had died of childhood cancer in the U.S. during the 1960s were examined and reviewed. Of these, only 31 had been diagnosed with mesothelioma disease, and less than half of those could be confirmed by hospital records. Unfortunately, there was no history of asbestos exposure in any of the thirteen confirmed mesothelioma cases.
This does not mean that asbestos played no part in the children's disease; secondary exposure and genetic predisposition all play a large part in mesothelioma, and fetal exposure is not unknown. Childhood mesothelioma however remains the rarest form of this disease.
Sources
Cooper SP, et. al. "Epidemiologic Aspects of Childhood Mesothelioma." Pathology and Immunopathology Research Vol. 8:276-286 (1989)
Fraire AE, et. al. "Mesothelioma of Childhood." Cancer, Volume 62 Issue 4, Pages 838-847 (June 2006)
Grundy, Gordon W., et. al. "Malignant Mesothelioma in Childhood. Report of 13 Cases." Cancer, Volume 30 Issue 5, Pages 1216-1218 (June 2006)
Posted in: Mesothelioma
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