Summary

Asbestos has been recognised as an important risk factor for lung cancer for many years. However, although lung cancer death statistics for Great Britain are readily available, the number of deaths attributable to asbestos cannot be determined directly. This is because there are a number of agents that can cause the disease - most importantly, tobacco smoke - and lung cancers resulting from asbestos exposure are clinically indistinguishable from those caused by these other agents.

• It is likely that there are around as many asbestos related lung cancer deaths in Great Britain annually as there are mesothelioma deaths. There were 2056 mesothelioma deaths in 2006.
• There were 195 new cases of disablement in 2007 due to asbestos-related lung cancer and 104 reports of the disease in the THOR scheme, not all of which were asbestos-related. These numbers are substantially lower than the likely annual total number of deaths inferred from the number of mesotheliomas.