Background:

Pleural mesothelioma is a neoplasm almost exclusively attributed to occupational exposure to asbestos and is legally considered an occupational disease. Nevertheless, only a few cases achieve that official recognition. The objective of this work was to describe and analyse this issue, and to identify the major obstacles to its recognition.

Methods:

A descriptive and retrospective epidemiological study of data was carried out, including figures and some characteristics, of all patients with pleural mesothelioma registered in the official health and labor registries of the Valencian Community from 2012 to 2018, using frequencies, proportions, and incidence rates.

Results:

There were large differences between the two sets of data collected in the different registries, especially regarding the number of cases. During the seven years of data examined, 590 pleural mesotheliomas were diagnosed in the Valencian public health system. Of these, the number of cases that were related to occupational exposure was at least 437. Despite the legal duty of doctors to report such cases, only 31 were reported as suspected occupational disease (7.09%), of which only 13 were ultimately officially recognized as such. It was estimated that the annual economic overcost to the public system of unrecognised patients with this occupational disease by was 2,2270,520 euros.

Conclusions:

Only a small proportion of occupational mesotheliomas are officially recognized as such. This has important health care and economic repercussions for the individuals involved as well as for the public health system.

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