Industrial Carcinogenesis And Toxicology

Our plain-English summary of Industrial Carcinogenesis And Toxicology, by M.W. Goldblatt, J. Goldblatt (1956).

The study

• Authors: M.W. Goldblatt, J. Goldblatt
• Published: Industrial Medicine And Hygiene (E.R.A. Merewether, Editor), London: Butterworth, Volume 3, Pp. 185-188, 215-224 And 557-562 (1956)
• Type of article: Book excerpt
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library, J-M no. 001843.

In plain English

This 1956 textbook chapter by M.W. Goldblatt and Judith Goldblatt was a review of occupational cancer, not a new study. The pages supplied include a section on asbestos, in which the authors gathered earlier published reports on asbestosis and lung cancer. They cited a 1947 factory inspectorate report by Merewether in which lung cancer was present in 13.2 per cent of 235 deaths caused by asbestosis. They also cited an estimate by Behrens (1952) of 44 lung carcinomas (14.2 per cent) among 309 published asbestosis cases, compared with 32 such tumours (1.4 per cent) among 2,204 silicosis cases. They noted that a Canadian report by Cartier made no mention of lung cancer among 22 asbestosis cases. They wrote that animal research by Gardner and co-workers had given no clue that asbestos causes cancer. They doubted a 1941 claim that 20 per cent of 100 mice exposed to asbestos dust developed cancer. The authors concluded that, for practical purposes, asbestos or a derivative of it could be regarded as a probable co-carcinogen in some cases of diffuse lung fibrosis. They said it was not yet possible to say whether fibrosis must come before the cancer.

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: Review chapter in a textbook (Industrial Medicine and Hygiene, Volume 3), discussing published reports and animal experiments on occupational cancer, including asbestos
• Who was studied: No population of its own; the authors reviewed earlier published case series, factory inspectorate reports, case reports and animal experiments (mainly 1930s to early 1950s) on asbestos workers and people with asbestosis
• Exposure: Asbestos dust in general. The chapter describes the commercial forms as serpentine (chrysotile, Canadian), the amphiboles (tremolite, crocidolite, actinolite) and amosite (South Africa).
• Main results:
  • The authors cited Merewether's 1947 Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories: among 235 deaths caused by asbestosis, cancer of the lung was present in 13.2 per cent. The OCR prints '13-2'; the article elsewhere gives 13·2 per cent for 31 carcinomas in 235 cases.
  • The authors cited Behrens (1952): of 309 cases of asbestosis reported in the literature, 44 had carcinoma of the lung (14.2 per cent). This compared with 32 such tumours in a series of 2,204 cases of silicosis (1.4 per cent).
  • The authors reported that Cartier's study of Canadian asbestos mine workers made no mention of any lung cancer among 22 cases of asbestosis. The authors said that, based on findings elsewhere, 1 or 2 cases would have been expected.
  • The authors stated that the animal research of Gardner and co-workers on asbestos gave no clue supporting the possibility that asbestos could cause cancer.
  • The authors described the claim by Nordmann and Sorge (1941) that 20 per cent of 100 mice exposed to undefined asbestos dust developed cancer. They said there is considerable doubt whether that evidence is acceptable.
  • The authors reported that electron microscope work by Champeix and Bouteville (1950) on asbestosis bodies gave two observations suggesting that the asbestos fibre dissolves.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that, until the problem of producing lung cancer experimentally is solved, asbestos or a derivative of asbestos may for practical purposes be regarded as a probable co-carcinogen in a proportion of cases of diffuse fibrosis of the lung.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors stated it was not yet possible to say whether the preceding fibrosis is necessary for the later cancer, or whether the cancer could arise without it.
  • The authors stated that more work was needed, especially quantitative studies of how the different asbestos types dissolve.
  • The authors noted that the type of lung cancer seen in people had not been reproduced in animal experiments.
  • The authors noted that Cartier did not give the populations at risk, so essential figures could not be calculated.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Carcinogenesis, Lung Cancer, Carcinoma, Silicosis, Fibrosis.

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