Types of malignant mesothelioma

There are two primary types of malignant mesothelioma:

Pleural mesothelioma, the most common form of the cancer, grows in the lining covering the lungs.
Peritoneal mesothelioma affects the tissue lining the abdominal cavity.
Mesothelioma is also broken down into cell types, which depend on what the cells look like under a microscope. The cell types include epithelial (50 to 70 percent are diagnosed with this type), sarcomatoid (seven to 20 percent have this type), or mixed (20 to 35 percent have both epithelial and sarcomatoid cells).