Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffMalignant mesothelioma (me-zo-thee-le-O-muh) is a rare cancer that occurs in the thin layer of tissue that covers the majority of your internal organs (mesothelium).
Doctors divide mesothelioma into different types based on what part of the mesothelium is affected, including:
- Pleural malignant mesothelioma, which affects the tissue that surrounds the lungs and is the most common form of mesothelioma.
- Peritoneal mesothelioma, which occurs in the tissue in your abdomen.
- Pericardial mesothelioma, which affects the tissue surrounding the heart.
- Mesothelioma of the tunica vaginalis, which occurs in the lining around the testicles.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma in the United States each year, according to the American Cancer Society.
