Carcinogenic asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Carcinogenic asbestos, by M. Yewe-Dyer (British Dental Journal, 2008).

The study

• Author: M. Yewe-Dyer
• Journal: British Dental Journal
• Published: 2008;204(10):544
• Type of article: Comment, Letter
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item is a short letter to the editor, not a research study. It reports no data, rates or measurements. The author wrote in response to an earlier letter in the same journal about asbestos dressings. The author recalled that in 1966, while working as a houseman at The London Hospital, they mixed a gingivectomy pack (a dental dressing) for a patient. When told the dressing contained asbestos, the patient left the clinic in a hurry. The patient later explained that he worked in the Department of Pathology and knew asbestos to be highly carcinogenic, especially when inhaled. The author then looked into the possible dangers of asbestos and published an article in the British Dental Journal the following year. The author wrote that they understood the use of asbestos-containing packs stopped almost immediately in UK dental schools after that article appeared. The letter does not name a fiber type, describe any disease in any patient, or give evidence for this account beyond the author's own recollection.

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 (personal recollection; no study carried out)
• Who was studied: one patient treated by the author at The London Hospital in 1966; no study population
• Exposure: asbestos-containing gingivectomy pack (dental dressing); fiber type not stated
• Main results:
  • The patient, who worked in a pathology department, told the author he knew asbestos to be highly carcinogenic, especially on inhalation (the patient's statement as reported by the author, not a study finding)
  • The author investigated the possible dangers of asbestos and published an article in the BDJ the following year (cited as Br Dent J 1967; 120: 507)
  • The author understood that, after that article, use of asbestos-containing packs ceased almost immediately in UK dental schools

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Carcinogenic.

Related studies

• Asbestos dressing — A. Cook (2008)
• Chest wall resection---alloplastic replacement — L.H. Lampl, H. Loeprecht (1988)
• Absence of carcinogenic response to multiwall carbon nanotubes in a 2-year bioassay in the peritoneal cavity of the rat — J. Muller, M. Delos, et al. (2009)
• Carcinogenic hazards from inhaled carbon black, titanium dioxide, and talc not containing asbestos or asbestiform fibers: recent evaluations by an IARC Monographs Working Group — R.A. Baan (2007)
• Multiple mechanisms for the carcinogenic effects of asbestos and other mineral fibers — J.C. Barrett, P.W. Lamb, et al. (1989)
• Induction of c-fos and c-jun proto-oncogenes in target cells of the lung and pleura by carcinogenic fibers — Y.M. Janssen, N.H. Heintz, et al. (1994)

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