Household-contact asbestos neoplastic risk

Our plain-English summary of Household-contact asbestos neoplastic risk, by H.A. Anderson, R. Lilis, S.M. Daum, et al (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1976).

The study

• Authors: H.A. Anderson, R. Lilis, S.M. Daum, A.S. Fischbein, I.J. Selikoff
• Journal: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
• Published: 1976;271:311-23
• Cited by: 129 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. 002258).

Summary of the article

The authors investigated whether disease among household contacts of asbestos workers was common or rare. They studied household contacts of the 1664 workers employed between 1941 and 1954 at a factory producing amosite asbestos products. Contacts who had lived with the workers during their employment were being traced for a mortality study and invited for medical examination. Each examinee gave an occupational, medical, smoking and respiratory history and had a physical examination, posteroanterior and oblique chest x-rays, and screening pulmonary function tests. Five experienced physicians read the x-rays blind using the ILO/UC Pneumoconiosis Classification, and the consensus reading was used. Of 354 people examined, 326 had lived in the household during the worker's employment and had no occupational asbestos exposure of their own. Of these, 114 (35%) had chest x-ray abnormalities: pleural thickening in 69 (21%), pleural calcification in 19 (6%) and irregular opacities in 62 (19%). Pleural changes alone were more frequent than parenchymal changes alone (52 versus 35), the reverse of the pattern seen in the workers. Four pleural mesotheliomas were identified among household contacts, two of them fatal. The authors concluded that significant household contamination with asbestos from industrial sources can and does commonly occur. They stated that it may cause characteristic x-ray changes and, less frequently, asbestos-associated cancer.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This preliminary report studied household members of workers at one factory that made amosite asbestos products and employed 1664 workers from 1941 to 1954. The authors were tracing people who lived with these workers during their employment and offered them medical examinations, including chest x-rays. Of 326 household contacts with no job exposure to asbestos of their own, 114 (35%) had chest x-ray abnormalities. Out of all 326, 52 (16%) had pleural changes only, 35 (11%) had lung scarring (irregular opacities) only, and 27 (8%) had both. Only two x-rays showed lung scarring beyond ILO/UC category 1. Four pleural mesotheliomas had been found among traced household members. Two workers' daughters died at ages 52 and 41, more than 30 years after their first exposure in childhood. A 32-year-old sister-in-law and a 40-year-old son of workers were under treatment. The authors concluded that household contamination with industrial asbestos can and does commonly occur, and may result in x-ray changes and, less frequently, asbestos-associated cancer. They noted that exposure intensity was unknown and that cancer risk had not yet been analyzed.

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: Preliminary report of a household-contact cohort study (tracing for a mortality study still in progress), with a cross-sectional medical and chest x-ray examination of household contacts
• Who was studied: Household contacts of workers at one amosite asbestos products factory (location not named in the text). Of 354 examined, 326 were analyzed: those who lived in the worker's home during his employment and had no occupational asbestos exposure of their own. They were examined 25-30 years after household contamination presumably began.
• Exposure: Asbestos brought home from a factory producing amosite asbestos products, operating 1941 to 1954. The workers' length of employment ranged from one day to thirteen years. Fifty percent of those examined came from households where the worker was employed less than one year; 13% from households where employment was over five years.
• Main results:
  • Among the 326 household contacts, 114 (35%) had chest x-ray abnormalities (irregular opacities 1/0 or more, and/or pleural calcification or thickening).
  • Pleural changes were the only abnormality in 52 (16%) of all 326 household contacts examined.
  • Parenchymal fibrosis alone was found in 35 (11%) of all 326 household contacts examined.
  • Combined pleural and parenchymal changes were found in 27 (8%) of all 326 household contacts examined.
  • Only two household contacts' x-rays showed parenchymal fibrosis greater than ILO/UC category 1 (1/0-1/2).
  • Among household members traced so far, two pleural mesothelioma deaths were identified and confirmed on review of autopsy tumor tissue.
  • The first death was a daughter of a man who had worked with asbestos more than 13 years. She died at age 52, and her father also died of mesothelioma.
  • The second death was a daughter of a man with five years of asbestos work at the plant. She died at age 41.
  • Both daughters were first exposed as children and had latency periods (first exposure to clinical appearance of mesothelioma) of over 30 years.
  • Two living cohort members had biopsy-proven pleural mesothelioma and were under therapy: a 32-year-old woman who was a worker's sister-in-law, and a 40-year-old son of a plant employee.
  • Among household contacts, the ratio of people with parenchymal changes alone to people with pleural changes alone was 0.67. Among the amosite workers themselves, the comparable ratio was 1.92.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that significant household contamination with asbestos from industrial sources can and does commonly occur, and may result in characteristic radiologic changes and, less frequently, in asbestos-associated neoplastic disease.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The actual intensity of household asbestos contamination, and how long each family member was exposed, were unknown.
  • The findings were preliminary. Whether household exposure significantly increased cancer risk had not yet been analyzed; that analysis awaited completion of tracing and follow-up of the whole cohort.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Amosite, Chest X-Ray, Pulmonary Function Test (PFT), Pneumoconiosis, Asbestos Exposure, Pleural Thickening, Pleural Calcification, Pleural Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Asbestosis among household contacts of asbestos factory workers — H.A. Anderson, R. Lilis, et al. (1979)
• Asbestos-related radiographic findings among household contacts of workers exposed to Libby vermiculite: impact of workers' personal hygiene practices — T.J. Hilbert, A. Franzblau, et al. (2013)
• Asbestos disease in family contacts of shipyard workers — K.H. Kilburn, R. Lilis, et al. (1985)
• Mineral fiber content of lung tissue in patients with environmental exposures: household contacts vs. building occupants — V.L. Roggli, W.E. Longo (1991)
• Mortality experience of family contacts of asbestos factory workers — L. Joubert, H. Seidman, et al. (1991)
• Cancer risks in a historical UK cohort of benzene exposed workers — T. Sorahan, L.J. Kinlen, et al. (2005)

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