Asbestos exposure and laryngeal carcinoma

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos exposure and laryngeal carcinoma, by S. Freifeld (JAMA, 1977).

The study

• Author: S. Freifeld
• Journal: JAMA
• Published: 1977;238(12):1280
• Type of article: Case report
• Cited by: 5 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 002232).

In plain English

This article was a case report about one patient, a 63-year-old man who had persistent hoarseness for several months. He did not smoke and had worked for 30 years in a factory producing asbestos products. The article did not name the fiber type. A brother had died of pulmonary asbestosis, and the patient's own chest x-ray before surgery was consistent with pulmonary asbestosis. Biopsies showed epidermoid carcinoma of the left vocal cord. The cancer involved the whole left cord and extended about 2 mm onto the right cord. He was treated by removing the left half of the larynx (a left hemilaryngectomy). He recovered without complications and had a good voice, and at the time of writing there was no evidence the cancer had returned. Trichinella was found by chance in the right vocal cord. The author wrote that the patient had no history of inciting factors other than asbestos exposure. The author concluded that this case and the literature suggested a distinct possibility of an association between laryngeal carcinoma and asbestos exposure, while noting that few cases had been reported. One case cannot show how often this happens.

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: case report (single patient)
• Who was studied: One 63-year-old man, a nonsmoker, with persistent hoarseness for several months; Department of Otolaryngology, New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry, Newark
• Exposure: 30 years of work in a factory producing asbestos products; fiber type not stated
• Main results:
  • Biopsy confirmed epidermoid carcinoma of the left vocal cord, involving the entire left cord and extending about 2 mm onto the right vocal cord
  • The patient's preoperative chest x-ray was consistent with pulmonary asbestosis
  • A brother of the patient had died of pulmonary asbestosis
  • He was treated with left hemilaryngectomy, had an uneventful postoperative course, and at the time of writing had no evidence of recurrence
  • Trichinella was found incidentally in the right vocal cord during frozen section of the surgical margin
  • The author reported that the patient had no history of inciting factors other than asbestos exposure
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that this case and a review of the literature suggest a distinct possibility of an association between epidermoid carcinoma of the larynx and exposure to asbestos particles. The author also recommended routine laryngeal examination of industrial workers exposed to asbestos.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author noted that the total number of cases reported so far is small

Topics

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

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

Related studies

• Asbestos and laryngeal carcinoma — P.M. Stell, T. McGill (1973)
• Exposure to asbestos and laryngeal carcinoma — P.M. Stell, T. McGill (1975)
• Current theories for the development of nonsmoking and nondrinking laryngeal carcinoma — R. Wight, V. Paleri, et al. (2003)
• Asbestosis, laryngeal carcinoma, and malignant peritoneal mesothelioma in an insulation worker — A. Fischbein, J.C. Luo, et al. (1991)
• Metastatic laryngeal carcinoma mimicking pleural mesothelioma — M. Huncharek, J. Muscat (1991)
• Laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer and occupational exposure to asbestos and man-made vitreous fibers: results of a case-control study — J.L. Marchand, D. Luce, et al. (2000)

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