Carcinoma and asbestosis of the lung; report of a case

Our plain-English summary of Carcinoma and asbestosis of the lung; report of a case, by T.K. Owen (British Journal of Cancer, 1951).

The study

• Author: T.K. Owen
• Journal: British Journal of Cancer
• Published: 1951;5(4):382-3
• Cited by: 6 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 (J-M no. 001916).

In plain English

This article reports a single case. The patient, a 39-year-old man, had been a ship's steward for five years and before that had kept a greengrocery business for fifteen years. Twenty years earlier he had worked for twelve months in an asbestos factory in the East End of London. The article does not name the type of asbestos. In February 1948 he developed right-sided chest pain and breathlessness, and a pleural effusion was diagnosed. Tests for tuberculosis were negative, and material aspirated from his bronchus contained asbestosis bodies. He died in September 1948. At post-mortem, a large mass of growth surrounded and compressed the right lung, with deposits in glands in the upper mediastinum. Its site of origin could not be determined, and there were no distant metastases. Under the microscope the growth showed glandular, cystic and papillary structures, and large numbers of asbestosis bodies were found in the lungs. The author pointed to the short exposure, the long interval before the growth developed, and the unusual histological pattern.

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 (one patient)
• Who was studied: One man, aged 39, a ship's steward and former greengrocer, investigated at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Bournemouth (England) in 1948
• Exposure: Twelve months of work in an asbestos factory in the East End of London, twenty years before his illness. No fiber type or dose is given.
• Main results:
  • In February 1948 the patient developed pain in the right side of the chest and dyspnoea. A pleural effusion was diagnosed.
  • Sputum and pleural fluid were repeatedly tested for acid-fast bacilli (tuberculosis), with negative results.
  • Material aspirated from the bronchus contained typical asbestosis bodies. This finding led doctors to ask about his past work.
  • After surgical exploration of the pleural cavity, the patient died on September 29, 1948.
  • At post-mortem a large mass of growth surrounded and compressed the right lung.
  • There were large nodular deposits of growth in the glands of the upper mediastinum.
  • The site where the growth started could not be determined.
  • No distant metastases were present.
  • Microscopically the growth was made of cuboidal and polygonal cells in glandular cystic spaces with papillary formations.
  • Large numbers of asbestosis bodies were seen in the lungs.
• The authors' conclusion: The author did not draw a conclusion about cause. The author highlighted three features of the case: the short exposure to asbestos dust, the long time before the growth developed, and the unusual histological pattern of the growth.

Topics

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

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

Related studies

• Carcinoma of the lung in asbestosis: report of two additional cases — K.M. Lynch, H.R. Pratt-Thomas (1955)
• Pulmonary endpoints (lung carcinomas and asbestosis) following inhalation exposure to asbestos — B.T. Mossman, M. Lippmann, et al. (2011)
• Asbestosis and carcinoma of the lung; case report and review of the literature — J. Anderson, F.A. Campagna (1960)
• Expression of calretinin, thrombomodulin, keratin 5, and mesothelin in lung carcinomas of different types: an immunohistochemical analysis of 596 tumors in comparison with epithelioid mesotheliomas of the pleura — M. Miettinen, M. Sarlomo-Rikala (2003)
• Pseudomesotheliomatous carcinoma of the lung. A variant of peripheral lung cancer — T.R. Harwood, D.R. Gracey, et al. (1976)
• Environmental associations and histopathologic patterns of carcinoma of the lung: the challenge and dilemma in epidemiologic studies — J.C. Ives, P.A. Buffler, et al. (1983)

Browse more research in British Journal of Cancer, or return to medical research.