Datenquellen zur Häufigkeit des malignen Pleuramesothelioms in der Schweiz seit 2001

Data sources on the incidence of malignant pleural mesothelioma in Switzerland since 2001 Objective: Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a cancer of the membranes of the pulmonary pleurae and is caused predominantly by asbestos. While no exact incidence data are available for Switzerland, the case numbers have been increasing for many years and pleural mesothelioma is a topic of concern. Case numbers can be estimated, however, thanks to a variety of data sources. The purpose of this article is to present and compare these sources and to present corresponding analyses. Methods: We determined the numbers of patients with malignant pleura mesothelioma from 2001 to 2019 by using various datasets, including data from accident insurers, the National Institute for Cancer Epidemiology and Registration (NICER), the causes of death statistics and hospital inpatient data. The analysis of the latter dataset was specifically conducted for this publication. Results: All analyses showed increasing numbers of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma during the study period. The numbers from the accident insurers and the causes of death statistics converged during the observation period. The numbers from NICER and from inpatient data were considerably higher than those from the other two datasets. Conclusions: This is the first study that describes the incidence of pleural mesothelioma in various data sources in Switzerland. A comparative study of different data sources is shown to provide valuable additional information. The comparison of accident statistics and the causes of death statistics suggest that the recording of malignant pleural mesothelioma as an occupational disease is becoming increasingly thorough. Keywords: malignant pleural mesothelioma – asbestos – routine data – Switzerland