The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine

Our medical research library holds 5 studies published in The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (1947–2001). Each entry links to the study's record on PubMed and, where there is one, to the publisher's page and a free full text. 3 have an abstract, the authors' own summary as PubMed records it: open "Abstract" to read it. For 2 studies PubMed has no abstract for, we give the abstract printed in the article or, where there is none, a summary we wrote from it, each labeled as such.

About the journal

• Publisher: Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine
• Published: 1928 to the present, United States
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0044-0086 (print), 1551-4056 (electronic)
• Its record in the NLM Catalog

2000s

• A case of pleural mesothelioma with effusive-constrictive pericarditis. N.A. Weir, B. Gerstenhaber. 2001;74(3):159-63. Case report PubMed · Free full text

  Summary

  The authors described a man with malignant pleural mesothelioma who also developed benign effusive-constrictive pericarditis, a combination they stated had not been described before in the literature. The patient, a 76-year-old retired telephone installer who denied known asbestos exposure, was found to have a left pleural effusion on a chest radiograph taken before hip replacement. Thoracentesis removed 500 ml of serosanguinous fluid with no malignant cells, and CT showed pleural thickening and calcification without masses. He was considered most likely to have a benign asbestos-related effusion and was followed for two years, during which the effusions did not reaccumulate. He was then admitted with new atrial fibrillation, dyspnea on exertion, peripheral edema and weight loss. CT showed a new right pleural effusion and a moderate pericardial effusion. Echocardiography showed thickened pericardium, and heart catheterization showed equalization of diastolic pressures, leading to a diagnosis of constrictive pericarditis. At video-assisted thoracoscopy with pericardial biopsy, the parietal pleura showed malignant mesothelioma, while the pericardium showed only chronic inflammation and fibrosis. Biopsies of the peritoneum and diaphragm showed no malignancy. He declined chemotherapy and radiation and died three weeks later of respiratory insufficiency. No autopsy was performed. The authors found only one similar published case. They concluded that his death was due to benign effusive-constrictive pericarditis, more likely than not caused by asbestos.

  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.

1980s

• The biomedical and epidemiological characteristics of asbestos-related diseases: a review. M. Huncharek. 1986;59(4):435-51. Historical article · Review PubMed · Free full text

  Abstract

  The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with an overview of the biomedical and epidemiological characteristics of asbestos-related disease based upon currently available information. Epidemiological and experimental data developed over the past 20 years have greatly added to our knowledge of the biological effects of asbestos, particularly in relation to clinical disease. This information has substantially strengthened the evidence linking asbestos to specific health effects. Lung cancer and mesothelioma are clearly the most important asbestos-related causes of death among exposed individuals, although the accumulated data is suggestive of the existence of an excess risk of gastrointestinal and a variety of other neoplasms. Animal studies confirm the human epidemiological results and indicate that all commercially available fiber types are capable of producing lung cancer and mesothelioma. Experimental implantation and injection studies also show that the carcinogenicity of mineral fibers (including asbestos) is directly related to their dimensionality and not their chemical composition. Although the asbestos-related medical and scientific literature is voluminous, many issues related to the biological activity of asbestos fibers are as yet unresolved. Due to experimental and analytical limitations, questions concerning risk at low-level exposure, dose-response relationships, and individual susceptibility remain problematic.

• Value of a multinational approach in determining the causation of cancer. C.S. Muir. 1986;59(5):485-96. PubMed · Free full text

  Abstract

  MacMahon and Pugh define epidemiology as the use of knowledge on the frequency and distribution of disease to search for determinants. This paper demonstrates that a multinational approach in cancer epidemiology can be of great value in at least four circumstances: namely, the compilation and standardization of data, the assessment of risk, the pooling of study populations to obtain interpretable results, and the provision of resources for specific epidemiologic investigations. One or two examples are given for each category--the determination of international cancer incidence patterns, the evaluation of the risk posed by chemicals to man, assessment of the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation, determination of the long-term effects of exposure to asbestos substitutes, and studies on the influence of diet on esophageal cancer.

• Histologic classification and differential diagnosis of mesothelioma. D. Carter. 1981;54(3):173-80. PubMed · Free full text

  Abstract

  Controversy surrounds the diagnosis, classification, and therefore the epidemiology of those tumors which have been designated as mesotheliomas. The group includes lesions which are as broadly different as benign fibrous lesions which some authors refer to as fibromas and anaplastic tumors which are extremely difficult to differentiate from peripheral lung cancers. The former are benign tumors which are usually readily resected and therefore cured. The latter are unresectable tumors which are invariably fatal and which may terminate with extensive metastatic disease. The reasons for including all of these lesions under the category of mesothelioma and the differential diagnosis of the various types is discussed.

1940s

• The dust hazard in tremolite talc mining. L. Greenburg. 1947;19(4):481-501. PubMed · Free full text

  Abstract

  1. A study of the tremolite talc mining and milling industry in northern New York State is reported. 2. Talc in this region is of the asbestine variety, mingled with tremolite and anthophyllite. Analyses of material from both mines and mills gave consistently a free silica content of 1 per cent or less. Microscopic studies of dust showed the presence of fine, straight, needle-like fibers. 3. Dust counts in mining ranged from 6 to 5,000 million particles per cubic foot; in milling from 20 to 215 million particles per cubic foot. 4. In a group of 221 tremolite talc miners and millers, advanced fibrosis was found in 32 men, giving an incidence of 14.5 per cent. 5. All of the cases of fibrosis occurred among those men who had worked in tremolite talc for ten years or longer (107 men), giving an incidence for this group of 29.9 per cent. 6. The fibrosis found in this study was of a fine, diffuse type with a roentgenographic appearance of granulation or nodulation on a hazy background. It tended to be disabling in character and was frequently accompanied by dyspnea, cough, and fatigue. 7. There was also some evidence that this fibrosis was characterized by an increased susceptibility to tuberculosis. Clinically significant tuberculosis was diagnosed by roentgen examination in 3 of 18 cases of tremolite talc fibrosis where there had been no other dust exposure. 8. In addition to fibrosis, deposits of unidentified opaque material in the periphery of the lungs, including the region of the diaphragm and pericardium, designated as "talc plaques," were observed in 6.3 per cent of all tremolite talc workers examined. These deposits occurred independently of other lung pathology and could not be identified with any particular signs or symptoms.

  PubMed has no abstract for this study. This is the authors' abstract, copied from the article.

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