Asbestos pollution and pleural plaques

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos pollution and pleural plaques (The Medical Journal of Australia, 1981).

The study

• Journal: The Medical Journal of Australia
• Published: 1981;1(9):444
• Type of article: Editorial
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 001986).

In plain English

This was an unsigned editorial in The Medical Journal of Australia, not a research study. It reported no new data of its own and introduced a paper by Dr Young and colleagues in the same issue. The editorial stated that safe levels of asbestos exposure cannot be defined and that, for lung cancer and mesothelioma, there may be no safe threshold dose. It described contamination of homes from workers' clothes and shoes. It cited a U.S. survey of household contacts of workers at a factory processing amosite asbestos, which found pleural plaques in 7.9% of contacts not themselves occupationally exposed, compared with 0.6% of urban control residents. It reported that Young and colleagues found pleural plaques in 6.1% of 214 employees from two non-asbestos industries, against 0.003% in routine chest X-rays of people over 40 in New South Wales mass surveys. Those authors attributed this to damaged asbestos lagging and, at one plant, dust from a neighbouring asbestos product factory. The editorial noted that pleural plaques have other possible causes. It concluded that such pleural abnormalities should be recorded and reported to the patient, and that any history of asbestos exposure should be diligently sought.

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: unsigned editorial commenting on another paper in the same issue (Young and colleagues, page 464); no original data
• Who was studied: No study population of its own. The editorial discusses Young and colleagues' finding in 214 employees from two non-asbestos industries in New South Wales, and a U.S. survey of household contacts of workers at an amosite factory.
• Exposure: General environmental asbestos pollution, household contamination from workers' clothes and shoes (amosite factory in the U.S. survey), and indirect or 'cryptic' workplace exposure from damaged asbestos lagging and dust from a neighbouring asbestos product factory (Young and colleagues)
• Main results:
  • The editorial stated that safe exposure levels cannot be defined and that, for lung cancer and mesothelioma, there may be no safe threshold dose
  • Cited U.S. survey (begun 1973) of household contacts of amosite factory workers: pleural plaques in 7.9% of those not themselves occupationally exposed, versus 0.6% in an urban control population
  • Young and colleagues (the paper discussed, not this editorial) recorded pleural plaques in 6.1% of 214 employees from two non-asbestos industries, compared with 0.003% in routine chest X-rays of over-40-year-olds in New South Wales mass surveys
  • In Young and colleagues' group, only one affected person volunteered a history of occupational asbestos exposure
  • Young and colleagues attributed the plaques to workplace contamination from damaged asbestos lagging and, at one plant, dust from a neighbouring asbestos product factory
  • The editorial noted that pleural plaques on chest X-rays are not unique to asbestos exposure; other causes include past pneumothorax or haemothorax, chest surgery and empyema
• The authors' conclusion: The editorial concluded that clinicians and radiologists should be aware of pleural abnormalities without lung changes, that these should be recorded and reported to the patient, and that a history of asbestos exposure should be diligently sought

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Pleural plaques and thickening.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Pleural Plaques.

Related studies

• Environmental airborne tremolite asbestos pollution and pleural plaques in Afghanistan — C. Voisin, I. Marin, et al. (1994)
• Asbestosis, pleural plaques and diffuse pleural thickening: three distinct benign responses to asbestos exposure — P.A. Gevenois, V. de Maertelaer, et al. (1998)
• Localized pleural plaques and lung cancer — T. Partanen, M. Nurminen, et al. (1992)
• Diachronic study of pleural plaques in rural population with environmental exposure to asbestos — L. Sichletidis, D. Chloros, et al. (2006)
• Pleural plaques in the general population — G. Hillerdal (1991)
• Elevated micronucleus frequencies in patients with pleural plaque secondary to environmental exposure to asbestos — M. Gövercin, A.G. Tomatır, et al. (2014)

Browse more research in The Medical Journal of Australia, or return to medical research.