Letter: Asbestos in dentistry

Our plain-English summary of Letter: Asbestos in dentistry, by P.F. Infante, R.A. Lemen (The Journal of the American Dental Association, 1976).

The study

• Authors: P.F. Infante, R.A. Lemen
• Journal: The Journal of the American Dental Association
• Published: 1976;93(2):221-2
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item was a letter to the editor, not a research study, and it reported no new data. The authors responded to a report by American Dental Association (ADA) Councils on the hazards of asbestos in dentistry. They welcomed the Council's decision that asbestos-containing periodontal packs were no longer eligible for its Acceptance Program. The letter cited other researchers' work. One was an animal study by Wagner and others in which two gastric leiomyosarcomas were seen in rats fed talc or chrysotile, with no tumors in control animals. Others were epidemiologic studies of workers exposed to airborne asbestos that showed excess cancers other than lung cancer, especially of the gastrointestinal tract. The letter also cited a literature review by Schneiderman that linked increased airborne exposure to increased digestive system cancer risk. The authors stated that a safe threshold had never been demonstrated for any substance known to cause cancer in humans. They noted that the Council's report did not say whether airborne asbestos had been monitored in dental schools during laboratory casting. The authors urged the Council to educate the dental profession more aggressively about asbestos hazards and to protect dental students, instructors and patients.

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 (commentary on an ADA Councils report); no original data
• Who was studied: No study population. The letter concerned the dental profession, including dental students, instructors and patients
• Exposure: Asbestos in dentistry: asbestos-containing periodontal packs, and airborne asbestos fibers that may occur in dental laboratories, including during casting procedures in dental schools
• Main results:
  • The letter cited an animal study by Wagner and others (listed as in press), not the authors' own work. In that study, two gastric leiomyosarcomas were observed in rats fed talc or chrysotile, and no tumors occurred in control animals.
  • The letter cited epidemiologic studies by other researchers of populations occupationally exposed to airborne asbestos fibers. The authors said these studies consistently showed an excess risk of cancers other than of the lung, especially of the gastrointestinal tract.
  • The letter cited a literature review by Schneiderman, which concluded that increased exposure to airborne asbestos particles leads to an increased risk of digestive system cancer.
  • The authors stated that, for any substance known to cause cancer in humans, a threshold level below which it would not cause cancer had never been demonstrated.
  • The authors noted that the Councils' report mentioned that airborne fibers may occur in dental laboratories. However, it did not indicate whether airborne asbestos monitoring had ever been done in dental schools during laboratory casting.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors urged the Council to go beyond making asbestos-containing periodontal packs ineligible for its Acceptance Program. They asked it to take more aggressive steps to educate the dental profession about the carcinogenic properties and potential mutagenic hazards of asbestos, and to make sure dental students, instructors and patients are not at increased risk from laboratory or clinical asbestos exposure.

Related studies

• Prevention of Occupational Hazards Due to Asbestos Exposure in Dentistry. A Proposal from a Panel of Experts — C. Anaya-Aguilar, M. Bravo, et al. (2022)
• Letter: Penetration of asbestos through the digestive tract of rats — R.D. Pontefract, H.M. Cunningham (1973)
• Letter: Mesothelioma of the pericardium with cholesterol pericarditis — E. Argianas, K. Melissinos, et al. (1974)
• Letter to the editor on commentary: malignant mesothelioma incidence among talc miners and millers in New York state by M M Finkelstein — R.P. Nolan, J.F. Gamble, et al. (2013)
• Letter: Asbestos exposure and cancer of the larynx — T.L. Guidotti, J.L. Abraham, et al. (1975)
• Letter on: "Cosmetic talc as a risk factor for pleural mesothelioma: a weight of evidence evaluation of the epidemiology" — D. Mirabelli (2017)

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