Immune responses in asbestos-exposed individuals

Our plain-English summary of Immune responses in asbestos-exposed individuals, by D.L. Morris, S.D. Greenberg, E.C. Lawrence (Chest, 1985).

The study

• Authors: D.L. Morris, S.D. Greenberg, E.C. Lawrence
• Journal: Chest
• Published: 1985;87(3):278-80
• Type of article: Editorial
• Cited by: 8 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. 000493).

In plain English

This 1985 editorial, by authors from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, reviewed sixteen published studies of immune responses in groups of ten or more asbestos workers. The studies spanned two decades and covered various types and durations of asbestos exposure. The editorial collected no new data. The authors pointed to design weaknesses: a quarter of the reports compared workers with "normal populations," control subjects were often younger than the workers, and almost no reports matched or adjusted for age and smoking, both of which change immune measures. The most consistent finding was higher serum immunoglobulins (IgG, IgA and IgM) in exposed workers with and without asbestosis, highly significant in two studies well controlled for age. Results for antinuclear antibodies and rheumatoid factor were inconsistent, and the age-controlled studies gave mixed or no differences. Two of five studies reported lower T-cell counts, and skin-test results conflicted. The authors concluded that these immune responses were not yet adequately defined. They suggested the immunoglobulin rise was probably related to asbestos in the lungs acting as a chronic stimulus, and they called for better-matched, standardized studies.

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: Editorial reviewing published studies (no new data collected)
• Who was studied: Sixteen published studies, spanning two decades, each of immune responses in ten or more asbestos workers
• Exposure: Asbestos exposure of various types and durations in the reviewed studies; no specific fiber types are named in the editorial
• Main results:
  • Among the reviewed reports, 25 percent used "normal populations" (previously published rates or accepted standards) as controls, which the authors said may lead to biases
  • In five of the seven studies that gave mean ages for both groups, controls were on average five to 16 years younger than the workers; almost all reports lacked matching or multivariate analysis for age and smoking
  • Elevated serum immunoglobulins (IgG, IgA, IgM) were a consistent finding in asbestos-exposed workers with and without asbestosis, and were highly significant in two studies well controlled for age
  • In those two studies the differences in means for IgG, IgA and IgM were about 150, 90 and 60 (units printed as ng/dl), respectively; there was little evidence of correlation with length of exposure or severity of asbestosis
  • Antinuclear antibody (ANA) findings were inconsistent: six of nine studies reported elevated titers, with prevalence among workers as high as 28 percent; of two age-controlled studies, one showed an increase and the other no difference
  • Rheumatoid factor was more common among asbestos workers in six of nine studies, with 15 percent to 27 percent of workers positive in studies reporting differences; two age-controlled studies found no difference between workers and controls
  • Two of five studies measuring T-cells reported decreases in percentage and absolute numbers in the circulation, with differences between workers and controls of 300 to 400 cells/mm3; one age-controlled study found workers had fewer OKT4+ and OKT8+ lymphocytes than controls
  • Skin-test results were conflicting: Candida responses were diminished in two studies; for DNCB, in one study nine of nine patients with asbestosis responded compared with eight of ten controls, while in another only nine of 26 workers responded compared with 30 of 30 controls
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that immune responses in asbestos-exposed individuals were not yet adequately defined, but that the most significant trend was an increase in serum immunoglobulins, probably related to a pulmonary asbestos burden acting as a chronic antigenic stimulus. They called for additional well designed studies with well-matched controls and standardized testing.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors stated that immune responses in asbestos-exposed individuals had not yet been adequately defined
  • The authors noted that laboratory methods differed among the reviewed studies, and several used "normal populations" as controls

Topics

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

Related studies

• Circulating immune complexes in asbestos workers — J.J. Zone, W.N. Rom (1985)
• Immune response in shipyard workers with x ray abnormalities consistent with asbestos exposure — H. Anton-Culver, B.D. Culver, et al. (1988)
• Analysis of DNA methylation patterns in the tumor immune microenvironment of metastatic melanoma — S. Mitra, M. Lauss, et al. (2020)
• Amphibole, but not chrysotile, asbestos induces anti-nuclear autoantibodies and IL-17 in C57BL/6 mice — A. Ferro, C.N. Zebedeo, et al. (2014)
• Differential responses to growth factors by normal human mesothelial cultures from individual donors — J.F. Lechner, M.A. LaVeck, et al. (1989)
• Rheumatoid factor in serum of individuals exposed to asbestos — B. Pernis, E.C. Vigliani, et al. (1965)

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