Before 1950, malignant mesothelioma was so rare that some pathologists even questioned its existence [2] . However, the increasing use of asbestos after the second world war led to the description of a causal relationship between asbestos exposure and the development of mesothelioma in 1960 [3] . Although its use was widely abandoned in the western world in the 1980s, the long latency period between exposure to asbestos and onset of mesothelioma, which can range from 15 to 60 years [4, 5] , meant that the mortality rates from mesothelioma have continued to rise. In the USA the annual deaths from mesothelioma peaked at 3060 in 2002 and have subsequently declined, however the incidence of mesothelioma will continue to rise in the UK until it reaches a peak in about the year 2020 [6] . According to data gathered in the US Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results programme for 1973-1992, there has been virtually a constant rate of mesothelioma in females but a consistently higher rate for males. In the 1960s a mesothelioma register was set up in the UK to systematically record the mortality rates from mesothelioma and to try to identify the incidence of tumour development without known occupational exposure. It is predicted that around 90,000 deaths will occur from mesothelioma by 2050, with 65,000 of these occurring from 2002 onwards [7] .