Latency period for mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Latency period for mesothelioma, by A. Chovil, C. Stewart (Lancet, 1979).

The study

• Authors: A. Chovil, C. Stewart
• Journal: Lancet
• Published: 1979;2(8147):853
• Type of article: Letter
• Cited by: 5 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. 002071).

Summary of the article

In this letter, the authors questioned the impression given by some textbooks and papers that asbestos-related mesothelioma develops in old age, a very long time after exposure. They described the cases of mesothelioma attributable to occupational asbestos exposure that the Workmen's Compensation Board of Ontario, Canada, had compensated since 1970. Claims had been accepted for 26 cases that occurred between 1958 and 1978. Most of the workers had been in industries with high potential exposures, mainly to chrysotile fibres. Age at diagnosis (or death) ranged from 37 to 78 years, with a mean of 56.0 years. Latency, defined as the period from first known exposure to diagnosis, ranged from 6 to 44 years, with a mean of 26.9 years. The authors noted that they could not rule out additional earlier non-occupational exposure. Nineteen of the cases were pleural in origin and 7 were peritoneal. The authors stated that their series was small but did not fit the textbook picture. They noted that Elmes and Simpson had suggested that latency for this tumour may be a function of dose, and that this may account for their observations.

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 was a short letter to the editor. The authors, from the Medical Branch of the Workmen's Compensation Board of Ontario, Canada, described mesothelioma cases that the Board had compensated as attributable to occupational asbestos exposure. Claims had been accepted for 26 cases occurring between 1958 and 1978. Most had been workers in industries with high potential exposures, mainly to chrysotile fibres. Age at diagnosis (or death) ranged from 37 to 78 years, with a mean of 56.0. Latency, defined by the authors as the time from first known exposure to diagnosis, ranged from 6 to 44 years, with a mean of 26.9. Nineteen cases were pleural and 7 peritoneal. The authors noted that their series was small and that they could not rule out additional earlier non-occupational exposure. They concluded that their cases did not fit the textbook picture of a tumour developing in old age long after exposure. They suggested that an earlier proposal by other researchers, that latency may depend on dose, might account for their observations.

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 describing a case series of accepted workers' compensation claims for mesothelioma
• Who was studied: 26 mesothelioma cases occurring between 1958 and 1978 whose claims were accepted by the Workmen's Compensation Board of Ontario, Canada, which has compensated such cases since 1970
• Exposure: Occupational asbestos exposure; most cases were workers in industries with high potential exposures, mainly to chrysotile fibres
• Main results:
  • Among the 26 cases, age at diagnosis (or death) ranged from 37 to 78 years, with a mean of 56.0 years
  • Among the 26 cases, latency (period from first known exposure to diagnosis) ranged from 6 to 44 years, with a mean of 26.9 years
  • 19 of the 26 cases were pleural in origin and 7 were peritoneal
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that their series did not fit the textbook picture of mesothelioma developing in old age a very long time after exposure. They suggested that the proposal by Elmes and Simpson that latency may be a function of dose might account for their observations.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The series is small
  • Latency was measured from first known occupational exposure, and additional earlier non-occupational exposure could not be ruled out

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Latency, Mesothelioma, Asbestos Exposure, Chrysotile, Non-Occupational Exposure.

Related studies

• Latency periods in neoplastic diseases — A.P. Polednak (1974)
• The latency period of mesothelioma among a cohort of British asbestos workers (1978-2005) — G. Frost (2013)
• Occupational exposures to cosmetic talc and risk of mesothelioma: an updated pooled cohort and statistical power analysis with consideration of latency period — G.M. Marsh, A.M. Ierardi, et al. (2019)
• Comment on 'The latency period of mesothelioma among a cohort of British asbestos workers (1978-2005)': methodological problems with case-only survival analysis — D. Consonni, F. Barone-Adesi, et al. (2014)
• Comment on 'The latency period of mesothelioma among a cohort of British asbestos workers (1978-2005)' — D. Mirabelli, D. Zugna (2014)
• Comment on 'The latency period of mesothelioma among a cohort of British asbestos workers (1978-2005)': the effect of left censoring — A. Farioli, S. Mattioli, et al. (2014)

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