Exposure to asbestos versus organic fibrous dusts

Our plain-English summary of Exposure to asbestos versus organic fibrous dusts, by G.D. Clarke, R.H. Newman, C.H. O'Neill, et al (Lancet, 1983).

The study

• Authors: G.D. Clarke, R.H. Newman, C.H. O'Neill, D.W. Parry
• Journal: Lancet
• Published: 1983;2(8364):1423-4
• Type of article: Letter
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a short Lancet letter, not a research study. The authors were interested in dietary silica particles and oesophageal cancer in Iran and China. They were responding to Malker and colleagues' report of an excess of mesothelioma among machine and motor repairmen, metalsmiths and engineer technicians in sugar beet refineries compared with those in other industries, which raised the possibility that beet dust added to asbestos exposure. One of the authors had described silica fibres in ash from sugar cane leaves, which are burned at harvest, so such fibres would be inhaled in the smoke. Sugar beet, they wrote, stores its sugar in fleshy root tissue, where silica fibres are not known to occur; they had detected none. They noted small case numbers, including among the sugar cane farmers, who were reported to have no known asbestos exposure. Known asbestos exposure of workers in sugar refineries and elsewhere would lower statistical significance, and asbestos, zeolite and silicaceous diatomaceous earths are used as filter aids in refining. The authors concluded that mesotheliomas linked to sugar cane farming and sugar beet refining likely have importantly different causes.

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 (correspondence) commenting on another group's published report; no new study was carried out
• Who was studied: No people were studied by the authors. The letter discusses workers in sugar beet refineries described in Malker and colleagues' report, who were compared with those in other industries. It also discusses reports, cited by Malker and colleagues, of mesothelioma in sugar cane farmers in India and Louisiana who had no known exposure to asbestos
• Exposure: Asbestos in machines and in sugar refineries. Silica fibres in smoke from burning sugar cane leaves. Asbestos, zeolite and silicaceous diatomaceous earths used as filter aids in sugar refining
• Main results:
  • The authors suggested that silica fibres from sugar cane leaf ash might be relevant to mesothelioma in sugar cane farmers, because the leaves are burned at harvest and the fibres would be inhaled in the smoke
  • The authors stated that silica fibres are not known to be associated with the fleshy root tissues of sugar beet, and that they had detected none (no methods or numbers were given)
  • The authors argued that case numbers were small, both in Malker's studies and for the sugar cane farmers from India and Louisiana
  • The authors argued that any statistical significance would be lowered by workers' known exposure to asbestos in sugar refineries and elsewhere
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that there are likely important differences between the causes of mesotheliomas associated with sugar cane farming and those associated with sugar beet refining. They asked whether mineral filter aids had been used in sugar refining in Sweden in recent decades, and whether workers in such factories have more gastrointestinal tumours and lung carcinomas

Topics

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

Related studies

• Potential pulmonary effects of man-made organic fiber (MMOF) dusts — D.B. Warheit, G.A. Hart, et al. (2001)
• Fibrous dust particles and ferruginous bodies. Methods for quantitating them and some results from the lungs of city dwellers — P. Gross, J. Tuma, et al. (1970)
• Fine biogenic silica fibres in sugar cane: a possible hazard — R.H. Newman (1986)
• Tumorigenic effect of fibrous dusts in experimental animals — F. Pott, F. Huth, et al. (1974)
• Quantitative assessment of inorganic fibrous particulates in dust samples with an analytical transmission electron microscope — F.D. Pooley, N.J. Clark (1979)
• Lung response to particulates with emphasis on asbestos and other fibrous dusts — K.P. Lee (1985)

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