Letter: Asbestos exposure and cancer of the larynx

Our plain-English summary of Letter: Asbestos exposure and cancer of the larynx, by T.L. Guidotti, J.L. Abraham, P.B. DeNee (The Western Journal of Medicine, 1975).

The study

• Authors: T.L. Guidotti, J.L. Abraham, P.B. DeNee
• Journal: The Western Journal of Medicine
• Published: 1975;122(1):75
• Cited by: 5 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 001129).

Summary of the article

This letter to the editor responded to a review of asbestos-related diseases by Rom and Palmer (West J Med, July 1974). The authors felt that the review had referred only briefly to emerging evidence linking asbestos exposure with cancer of the larynx, and that this possible association deserved wide recognition because any one center would find it difficult to collect enough cases for pathologic study. They summarized published work. A retrospective study of 100 male British patients with squamous carcinoma of the larynx at the Liverpool Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital found an occupational history of asbestos exposure in 31 percent, compared with 3 percent of age-matched hospital inpatients with nonmalignant disease. Smoking histories were comparable in patients with and without significant exposure. The mean latency was 30 years and the mean duration of exposure was 27 years. A prospective study of 4,000 factory workers with presumed exposure found two cases after 41 years, against a general population incidence of 1/50,000. One of the two had only one month of severe exposure. The authors noted that separating an asbestos effect from smoking and alcoholism may be a formidable problem, and that other head and neck cancers may also be associated with asbestos. They proposed searching surgical or necropsy tissue from laryngeal carcinoma cases with complete occupational histories for asbestos bodies and other particulates, using scanning electron microscopy and x-ray spectroscopic analysis.

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 item was a letter to the editor, not a research study, and it reported no new data. The authors, based in Morgantown, West Virginia, wrote that a July 1974 review of asbestos-related diseases by Rom and Palmer had only briefly mentioned emerging evidence of an association between asbestos exposure and cancer of the larynx. They summarized other researchers' work. One was a Liverpool study of 100 male British patients with squamous carcinoma of the larynx, in which 31 percent had an occupational history of asbestos exposure compared with 3 percent of age-matched hospital inpatients with nonmalignant disease. The other was a study of 4,000 factory workers with presumed exposure that found two cases after 41 years. The authors noted that separating any asbestos effect from smoking and alcoholism may prove a formidable problem. They suggested searching surgical or necropsy tissue for asbestos bodies using scanning electron microscopy and x-ray spectroscopic analysis. They felt the possible association deserved wide recognition. The letter did not name any specific fiber type.

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 commenting on a published review; no original data
• Who was studied: No population was studied by the authors; the letter discusses studies by others
• Exposure: Asbestos exposure (no fiber type specified) in relation to cancer of the larynx
• Main results:
  • Cited from another study (Stell and McGill, Liverpool), not the authors' own finding: among 100 male British patients with squamous carcinoma of the larynx, 31 percent had an occupational history of asbestos exposure, versus 3 percent of age-matched control hospital inpatients with nonmalignant disease
  • Cited from the same Liverpool study: the mean latency was 30 years from first known exposure to clinical carcinoma, and the mean duration of exposure was 27 years
  • Cited from the same Liverpool study: a higher percentage of laryngeal carcinoma patients smoked, but among smokers the smoking histories were comparable in patients with and without significant asbestos exposure
  • Cited from another study (Newhouse and Berry): a prospective study of 4,000 factory workers with presumed exposure found two cases after 41 years, compared with a general population incidence of 1/50,000. One of the two had only one month of severe exposure
  • Cited: preliminary data from the Liverpool group suggested that other cancers of the head and neck may also be associated with asbestos exposure
• The authors' conclusion: The authors felt the possible association between asbestos exposure and laryngeal cancer deserved wide recognition. They suggested that examining a few selected laryngeal carcinoma cases with complete occupational histories, using techniques such as scanning electron microscopy and x-ray spectroscopic analysis, could yield useful data
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Separating an association with asbestos from a possible association with smoking and alcoholism may be a formidable problem
  • It is difficult for any one center to accumulate enough cases for pathologic study

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Throat and laryngeal cancer.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Asbestos Exposure, Laryngeal Cancer, Carcinoma, Occupational History, Latency, Autopsy, Asbestos Bodies, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).

Related studies

• Alcohol, smoking, and occupational factors in cancer of the larynx: a case-control study — W. Ahrens, K.H. Jöckel, et al. (1991)
• Occupational exposures and squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, and oesophagus: a case-control study in Sweden — P. Gustavsson, R. Jakobsson, et al. (1998)
• Asbestos and laryngeal carcinoma — P.M. Stell, T. McGill (1973)
• Exposure to asbestos and laryngeal carcinoma — P.M. Stell, T. McGill (1975)
• Asbestos exposure and laryngeal carcinoma — S. Freifeld (1977)
• Occupational exposures and cancer of the larynx-systematic review and meta-analysis — S. Paget-Bailly, D. Cyr, et al. (2012)

Browse more research in The Western Journal of Medicine, or return to medical research.