Asbestos bodies and fibers in lung tissues

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos bodies and fibers in lung tissues, by A. Fondimare, J. Desbordes (Environmental Health Perspectives, 1974).

The study

• Authors: A. Fondimare, J. Desbordes
• Journal: Environmental Health Perspectives
• Published: 1974;9:147-8
• Cited by: 5 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy.

Abstract

It is suggested that the ratio of asbestos bodies observable by light microscopy to asbestos fibers counted by electron microscopy be examined in a series of cases of asbestosis of varying severity. If the ratio is reasonably constant an estimate of fiber content could be made from the more easily conducted count of asbestos bodies by light microscopy.

In plain English

This short report from Hospital Calmette in Le Havre, France, proposed a way to estimate asbestos content in lung tissue. The authors examined 4 g samples of lower-lobe lung from 14 people with pleural mesothelioma, 11 with severe occupational asbestosis with lung fibrosis and squamous carcinoma, and 52 unselected patients from the general population. By light microscopy, all unselected patients had a few asbestos bodies, severe asbestosis cases had many thousands, and mesothelioma cases fell in between. By electron microscopy, many uncoated fibers were seen in all cases. The authors wrote that six severe asbestosis patients had a hundred or more fibers per body, but dividing fibers by bodies for some Table 2 cases, as scanned, gives fewer than a hundred. In patients highly exposed to both amphiboles and chrysotile, lung fibers were almost exclusively large amphibole fibers, with rare chrysotile. Fibers in pleural plaques were smaller and thinner, and chrysotile was common. The authors suggested checking whether the body-to-fiber ratio stays reasonably constant across cases of varying severity. If so, the quicker light-microscopy count could estimate fiber content.

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: Short descriptive report of lung tissue analyses (light and electron microscopy) in patient groups and unselected controls, proposing a counting method
• Who was studied: Lung tissue from 14 cases of pleural mesothelioma, 11 cases of severe occupational asbestosis with lung fibrosis and squamous carcinoma, and 52 unselected patients from the general population as controls; Hospital Calmette, Le Havre, France; dates not given
• Exposure: Workers with heavy exposure to asbestos; patients described as having high exposure to both amphiboles and chrysotile
• Main results:
  • By light microscopy, all unselected patients had a few asbestos bodies. Severe asbestosis patients had many thousand bodies. Mesothelioma cases lay in between.
  • Unselected patients (Table 1): of 52, 48 fell in the lowest count category of ferruginous bodies per 4 g lung and 4 in the next category.
  • Mesothelioma patients (Table 1): of 14, 4, 4, 5 and 1 fell in the four count categories, from lowest to highest.
  • Severe asbestosis patients (Table 1): of 11, 3 fell in the third count category and 8 in the highest.
  • By electron microscopy, many uncoated asbestos fibers were seen in all cases. In the text, the authors stated that in six patients with severe asbestosis they counted a hundred or more fibers for every asbestos body. However, for some cases in Table 2 as this copy reads it (for example case A. 481 and case A. 1384), dividing the printed fiber count by the printed body count gives fewer than a hundred fibers per body. The scanned table's exponents are damaged, so the discrepancy cannot be resolved from this text.
  • In lung tissue of patients with high exposure to both amphiboles and chrysotile, fibers were almost exclusively large amphibole fibers, with only rare very long and sinuous chrysotile fibers.
  • In pleural plaques from the same cases, asbestos fibers were smaller and thinner (less than 2 micrometers in length), and chrysotile fibers were commonly seen.
  • In one recently seen case with lung fibrosis, squamous carcinoma of the lung and pleural plaques, a hyaline plaque on the liver contained a few asbestos bodies and small uncoated amphibole and chrysotile fibers.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that it may be of interest to quantify the ratio of asbestos bodies to asbestos fibers in human lungs. They proposed that if the ratio is relatively constant from mild to severe asbestosis, the faster light-microscopy count of asbestos bodies could provide an estimate of the number of fibers present.

Topics

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

Related studies

• Relationships between ferruginous bodies and uncoated asbestos fibers in lung tissue — R.F. Dodson, M. O'Sullivan, et al. (1996)
• Focused X-Ray Histological Analyses to Reveal Asbestos Fibers and Bodies in Lungs and Pleura of Asbestos-Exposed Subjects — L. Pascolo, A. Gianoncelli, et al. (2016)
• Asbestos fibers in human pulmonary and extrapulmonary tissues — J. Huang, N. Hisanaga, et al. (1988)
• A method for extracting ferruginous bodies from sputum and pulmonary tissue — M.J. Smith, B. Naylor (1972)
• A procedure for the isolation of amosite asbestos and ferruginous bodies from lung tissue and sputum — M.G. Williams, R.F. Dodson, et al. (1982)
• Numbers of asbestos bodies on iron-stained tissue sections in relation to asbestos body counts in lung tissue digests — V.L. Roggli, P.C. Pratt (1983)

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