The term "mesothelioma" was first used in 1921 by E ASTWOOD and M ARTIN [1] to describe primary tumours of the pleura. At that time, the primary nature of thesetumours was controversial without confirmation by au-topsy. Today, the histological diagnosis of mesothelioma remains problematic and differential diagnosis against ad-enocarcinoma is difficult in 10–15% of cases despite theroutine use of histochemistry. The first evidence implicating asbestos in the pathogen- esis of mesothelioma was presented in 1960 by W AGNER [2] in South African miners. The incidence of malignant pleu-ral mesothelioma (MPM) has risen for some decades andis expected to peak sometime between 2010 and 2020 [3,4]. This increase has been attributed to the widespread useof asbestos in the period from World War II until the endof the 1970s [5]. Pleural mesothelioma is more frequentthan peritoneal mesothelioma, possibly because in-hala-tion is the usual route of the pathogenic fibres.