Asbestos And Mesothelioma Incidence In Connecticut

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos And Mesothelioma Incidence In Connecticut, by L. Bruckman, R.A. Rubino, B. Christine (1977).

The study

• Authors: L. Bruckman, R.A. Rubino, B. Christine
• Published: Journal Of The Air Pollution Control Association 27(2):121-126, February (1977)
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library, J-M no. 002227. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This article, by staff of Connecticut's environmental protection and health departments, used the Connecticut Tumor Registry to find all Connecticut residents diagnosed with mesothelioma from 1935 through 1972. It compared incidence trends with the state's estimated cumulative asbestos consumption, which was calculated from United States consumption according to population share. There were 133 cases: 89 men and 44 women. The combined-sex age-adjusted rate rose from 0.02 per 100,000 in 1940 to 1949 to 0.25 in 1960 to 1969. For men it rose from 0.04 to 0.37. No cases were diagnosed in women until 1950 to 1959, when 12 were reported (rate 0.1), and the rate rose slightly to 0.15 in 1960 to 1969. Only 4 patients were reported with known asbestos exposure, and 8 more were felt to have had some exposure. The authors noted that the rise may partly reflect greater awareness of this tumor, and that complete occupational histories were not available. They concluded that the rise closely followed cumulative asbestos consumption and suggested a linearly increasing cause-effect relationship which warrants further investigation.

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: Descriptive study of tumor registry incidence data, with a population-level comparison to estimated statewide asbestos consumption. The article also discusses airborne asbestos sources and a proposed state air standard.
• Who was studied: 133 Connecticut residents diagnosed with mesothelioma from 1935 through 1972 (89 men, 44 women), identified through the Connecticut Tumor Registry
• Exposure: Estimated cumulative asbestos consumption in Connecticut, calculated by allocating total United States consumption by the Connecticut-to-US population ratio. Fiber types were not separated, and individual exposure was mostly unknown.
• Main results:
  • Combined-sex age-adjusted mesothelioma rate rose from 0.02 per 100,000 in 1940 to 1949 to 0.25 in 1960 to 1969, which the authors described as over a 10-fold increase
  • Men: age-adjusted rate rose from 0.04 per 100,000 in 1940 to 1949 to 0.37 in 1960 to 1969
  • Women: no mesotheliomas were diagnosed until 1950 to 1959, when 12 were reported (rate 0.1 per 100,000). The rate rose slightly to 0.15 in 1960 to 1969.
  • Only 4 of the 133 people were reported with known asbestos exposure, and 8 others were felt to have had some exposure
  • 44 individuals (33.0%) worked in the home or in like occupations; 36 (27.1%) worked in manufacturing industries; 19 (14.3%) worked in offices
  • About 58% of cases lived in urban areas, 34% in suburban areas and 7% in semi-rural areas
  • Almost all patients were at least 40 years old at diagnosis
  • Time from diagnosis to death was almost always less than 3 years
  • The authors expected Connecticut's proposed ambient air standard (30 ng per cubic meter, or 30,000 total asbestos fibers per cubic meter, 30-day average) to reduce state asbestos-related fatalities to 2 per year
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the rapid rise in Connecticut's mesothelioma incidence closely follows the rise in the state's cumulative asbestos consumption (1940 to 1970) and suggests a linearly increasing cause-effect relationship which warrants further investigation
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The increase in cases may in part reflect greater awareness of this tumor and pathologists' attempts to classify all malignancies; the statistics are subject to diagnostic error
  • Complete occupational histories of the people with mesothelioma were not available
  • The relationships among asbestos consumption, environmental asbestos levels and asbestos-related disease could not be fully quantified because of an insufficient data base

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma, Cancer Registry, Asbestos Exposure.

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