Are glass fibres carcinogenic to man? A critical appraisal

Our plain-English summary of Are glass fibres carcinogenic to man? A critical appraisal, by J. Milne (British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1976).

The study

• Author: J. Milne
• Journal: British Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 1976;33(1):47-8
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

In plain English

This short article was a critical appraisal, not an original study. The author questioned a hypothesis put forward by Stanton (1974) that inhaled glass fibres could cause cancer in humans. That hypothesis rested on rat experiments in which specially milled glass fibres were applied directly to the pleura, after which pleural tumours (mesotheliomas) developed. The author argued that this route of application was artificial and that the doses were far larger than could occur at work. The author then summarized earlier studies of glass fibre workers carried out by other researchers. Wright (1968) reported no significant chest X-ray changes in 1389 workers. Hill and colleagues (1973) found respiratory function unimpaired in 70 workers compared with matched controls. Gross, Tuma and de Treville (1971) found no demonstrable lung damage at autopsy in 20 fibreglass workers. Enterline and Henderson (1975) found no excess respiratory cancer deaths among 416 retired workers, and noted no mesotheliomas. The author concluded that the evidence that fibrous glass causes human occupational cancer was minimal and heavily outweighed by the evidence against it.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: critical appraisal (commentary) of a hypothesis and of published animal and worker studies; no new data collected
• Who was studied: No population was studied by the author. The article discussed Stanton's rat experiments and earlier published studies of glass fibre workers by other researchers.
• Exposure: glass fibres (fibreglass, fibrous glass), including the specially milled glass fibres applied to the pleura of rats in Stanton's experiments and occupational inhalation of glass fibres
• Main results:
  • The author argued that Stanton's method of applying glass fibres directly over the pleura of rats was artificial and unrelated to human exposure or animal inhalation.
  • The author argued that the pleural doses used by Stanton were much larger than could occur in occupational exposure.
  • The author cited Gross et al. (1970): in rats and hamsters that inhaled very high concentrations of glass fibres, the fibres were cleared almost completely from the lung and there was no evidence they reached the pleural cavity.
  • The author cited Wright (1968): a survey of 1389 workers with 10 to 25 years of glass fibre exposure showed no significant changes in chest radiographs.
  • The author cited Hill et al. (1973): respiratory function was unimpaired in 70 workers compared with a matched control group with no glass fibre exposure.
  • The author cited Gross, Tuma, and de Treville (1971): at necropsy, the lungs of 20 fibreglass workers, compared with 26 urban dwellers, showed no demonstrable gross or microscopic pulmonary damage.
  • The author cited Enterline and Henderson (1975): among 416 men retiring from six fibrous glass insulation plants during 1945-72, there was no evidence of excess respiratory cancer mortality compared with white US citizens, and no mesotheliomas were noted.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the evidence that fibrous glass causes human occupational cancer was minimal and heavily outweighed by the evidence against it, and that the trend of evidence pointed away from fibreglass being a long-term occupational or public health hazard.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Lung cancer.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Carcinogenic.

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