Cancer and asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Cancer and asbestos, by J. Beattie (British Medical Journal, 1968).

The study

• Author: J. Beattie
• Journal: British Medical Journal
• Published: 1968;4(5623):123-4
• Cited by: 1 article, 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 (J-M nos. 001436, 002724).

In plain English

This item is a letter to the editor of the British Medical Journal, responding to the journal's leading article on cancer and asbestos. The author examined copies of 452 death certificates, held by the Factory Department of the Ministry of Labour, for men who died with asbestosis between 1931 and 1965 at ages 30 to 79. Using national death statistics for England and Wales by age group, the author calculated how many deaths from intrathoracic malignancy (cancer inside the chest) would be expected and compared that with the number observed. Observed deaths exceeded expected deaths in every period. There were 12 observed against 1.64 expected in 1931-40, and 59 against 17.95 in 1961-65. The ratio of expected to observed fell from 1:7.3 to 1:3.3. The author concluded that the added risk appeared more than halved but was still about three times that without asbestosis. Together with work by Knox and colleagues, the author concluded that the risk had diminished since 1933, when dust control became effective in at least some asbestos factory areas. The author cautioned that death certificates are incomplete and inaccurate.

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: Letter to the editor reporting an analysis of death certificates, comparing observed with expected deaths from intrathoracic malignancy, calculated by five-year age group from national statistics
• Who was studied: 452 men who died with asbestosis between 1931 and 1965 at ages 30 to 79, whose death certificate copies were held by the Factory Department of the Ministry of Labour. By period: 62 (1931-40), 91 (1941-50), 141 (1951-60), 158 (1961-65)
• Exposure: Presence of asbestosis recorded on the death certificate. No fiber types, products or jobs are specified
• Main results:
  • In every time period, men dying with asbestosis had more deaths from intrathoracic malignancy than expected
  • Observed intrathoracic malignancy deaths were 12, 20, 43 and 59 for 1931-40, 1941-50, 1951-60 and 1961-65. Expected were 1.64, 5.0, 14.84 and 17.95
  • The ratio of expected to observed deaths fell from 1:7.3 in 1931-40 to 1:3.3 in 1961-65. The table gives 4.0 for 1941-50 and 2.9 for 1951-60
  • In 1961-65 the risk for a man with asbestosis of developing an intrathoracic neoplasm appeared to be about three times that without asbestosis
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the increased risk of intrathoracic malignancy with asbestosis appeared more than halved between 1931-40 and 1961-5. Together with data from Knox and colleagues, the author concluded that the risk had diminished since 1933, when dust control became effective in at least some working areas of asbestos factories
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Conclusions based only on death certificates are suspect because an unknown number of certificates contain incomplete or inaccurate information
  • In 1931-40, recorded deaths with asbestosis fell short of the actual number of deaths to which asbestosis contributed
  • Because intrathoracic cancers were probably more often missed in 1931-40, the true ratio for that period may have been higher than 1:7.3

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Asbestosis, Lung cancer.

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