Etiology of small cell lung carcinoma

Our plain-English summary of Etiology of small cell lung carcinoma, by W.J. Zeller, D. Schmähl (Recent Results in Cancer Research. Fortschritte der Krebsforschung. Progrès Dans Les Recherches Sur le Cancer, 1985).

The study

• Authors: W.J. Zeller, D. Schmähl
• Journal: Recent Results in Cancer Research. Fortschritte der Krebsforschung. Progrès Dans Les Recherches Sur le Cancer
• Published: 1985;97:1-10
• Type of article: Review
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 001258).

In plain English

This article was a review, not a new study. The authors surveyed published research on the causes of small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC), covering smoking, radiation, asbestos and chemical carcinogens. They described the evidence on smoking as convincing. On asbestos, they reported earlier findings. Kannerstein and Churg found no differences in lung cancer cell types between 50 asbestos-associated patients and a control group. Whitwell and colleagues found no difference in how often SCLC occurred between patients with less severe asbestosis and those with moderate or severe asbestosis; a rise in adenocarcinomas from 25% to 38% was not statistically significant. Selikoff and colleagues reported that cigarette smokers who worked with asbestos were about 92 times more likely to die of bronchogenic carcinoma than people who neither smoked nor were exposed. The authors concluded that most lung carcinogens are associated with nearly the whole range of lung cancer types. They noted that earlier reports lacked standard tissue classification and that some studies had few cases.

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: Literature review (survey) of the causes of small cell lung carcinoma
• Who was studied: Published studies of human lung cancer patients and exposed worker groups, plus some animal experiments, as reported by other investigators
• Exposure: Cigarette smoking, ionizing radiation (including uranium mining), asbestos, and chemical agents such as chloromethylethers, nickel, arsenic, chromate, cadmium, vinyl chloride and acrylonitrile
• Main results:
  • Reviewed study (Kannerstein and Churg 1972): no differences in lung cancer cell types between 50 asbestos-associated patients and a control group
  • Reviewed study (Whitwell et al. 1974): no difference in SCLC frequency by severity of asbestosis
  • In the same study (Whitwell et al. 1974), adenocarcinomas rose from 25% to 38% in patients with more severe asbestosis, but the difference was not statistically significant
  • Reviewed studies (Selikoff et al. 1968, 1980): cigarette smokers who worked with asbestos were about 92 times more likely to die of bronchogenic carcinoma than people who neither smoked nor were exposed to asbestos
  • Reviewed study (Wagner et al. 1971): mesothelioma after asbestos exposure was apparently not influenced by cigarette smoke
  • Reviewed study (Archer et al. 1974): among uranium miners, small cell undifferentiated carcinoma was the type increased the most
  • Across the chemical-agent studies the authors tabulated, the share of lung cancers that were SCLC ranged from 0 (vinyl chloride) to 74 percent (chloromethylethers)
  • Reviewed study (Auerbach et al. 1979): of 1,186 lung cancers, 82 were related to lung scars, and none of those 82 was small cell type
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the evidence that smoking is a major cause of SCLC is convincing, and that most lung carcinogens are associated with more or less the entire spectrum of lung cancer types
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Many studies gave no clear SCLC data, partly because earlier reports lacked standard tissue classification
  • Some of the reviewed studies had small numbers of cases
  • The role of air pollution could not be satisfactorily assessed

Topics

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

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

Related studies

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• Extrapulmonary small cell carcinoma mimicking malignant pleural mesothelioma — K. Noguchi, N. Fujimoto, et al. (2013)
• Nuclear Brachyury Expression Is Consistent in Chordoma, Common in Germ Cell Tumors and Small Cell Carcinomas, and Rare in Other Carcinomas and Sarcomas: An Immunohistochemical Study of 5229 Cases — M. Miettinen, Z. Wang, et al. (2015)
• Extrapulmonary small cell carcinoma — H.F. van der Heijden, Y.F. Heijdra (2005)
• Collision tumour of the pleura composed of small cell carcinoma and malignant mesothelioma — A.H. Lee, I.N. Soomro (2004)
• Expression of the small cell carcinoma antigens of cluster-5 and cluster-5A in primary lung tumours — A. Maier, U. Schmidt, et al. (1989)

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