Asbestos bodies

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos bodies, by M.L. Warnock, A.M. Churg (Chest, 1980).

The study

• Authors: M.L. Warnock, A.M. Churg
• Journal: Chest
• Published: 1980;77(2):129-30
• Type of article: Editorial
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 002063).

In plain English

This article is an editorial, not a research study. It was published alongside a study by Auerbach et al in the same issue of Chest. The authors described asbestos bodies, also called ferruginous bodies, which are mineral fibers with an iron-protein coat. They cited their own separate analysis, which examined the cores of over 600 bodies from more than 80 patients in the general population and found that the cores were asbestos. In that analysis, 98 percent of the bodies were formed on amphibole varieties rather than on chrysotile, the form that makes up over 90 percent of the asbestos used in the United States. Most of the 80 cores tested for chemical type were amosite or crocidolite. The authors wrote that asbestos bodies are only a partial measure of the asbestos in the lung. Auerbach et al reported asbestos bodies in many organs besides the lung. The authors questioned whether those structures were truly asbestos bodies, because sheet silicates, carbon and elastic tissue can also form ferruginous bodies, and they called for analysis of the bodies' cores. They concluded that an independent marker of asbestos exposure would be useful.

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: Editorial commenting on a study by Auerbach et al in the same issue; it reports no new data of its own
• Who was studied: No study population of its own. The editorial cites the authors' separate analysis of the cores of over 600 asbestos bodies from more than 80 patients in the general population, and it comments on the Auerbach et al study.
• Exposure: Asbestos bodies (ferruginous bodies: mineral fibers with an iron-protein coat) found in sputum or lung digests; amphibole asbestos (amosite, crocidolite) compared with chrysotile
• Main results:
  • The editorial cites the authors' separate study (their reference 3). In that study, the cores of asbestos bodies from general-population patients were asbestos, and 98 percent of the bodies were formed on amphibole varieties rather than chrysotile. Chrysotile makes up over 90 percent of the asbestos used in the United States.
  • In that same cited study, most of the 80 cores analyzed for chemical type by microprobe were the commercial varieties amosite or crocidolite.
  • The authors wrote that the failure to find chrysotile cores probably means chrysotile fibers break into pieces too short to form bodies, or dissolve in lung fluids. They concluded that asbestos bodies are only a partial measure of lung asbestos burden.
  • The authors questioned whether the structures Auerbach et al found outside the lung were truly asbestos bodies. They noted that other fibers, including sheet silicates, carbon and the body's own elastic tissue, can form ferruginous bodies, and said that analysis of the bodies' cores would be of great interest.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors stated that further studies measuring asbestos bodies and fibers in tissues may help confirm significant past exposure in an individual patient. In their experience, a person's exposure history is not necessarily a good indicator of the amount of asbestos in their tissues, so an independent marker of asbestos exposure would be useful.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Asbestos Bodies.

Related studies

• Analysis of the cores of asbestos bodies from members of the general population: patients with probable low-degree exposure to asbestos — A. Churg, M.L. Warnock (1979)
• A simple method for preparing ferruginous bodies for electron microscopic examination — A. Churg, N. Sakoda, et al. (1977)
• Presence of asbestos bodies in organs other than the lung — O. Auerbach, A.S. Conston, et al. (1980)
• The development of glass-fibre bodies in the lungs of guinea-pigs — S.K. Botham, P.F. Holt (1971)
• Analysis of cores of ferruginous bodies from former asbestos workers — R.F. Dodson, M.F. O'Sullivan, et al. (1982)
• Fibrous dust particles and ferruginous bodies. Methods for quantitating them and some results from the lungs of city dwellers — P. Gross, J. Tuma, et al. (1970)

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