Lymphohematogenous spread of asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Lymphohematogenous spread of asbestos, by A. Brown (Environmental Health Perspectives, 1974).

The study

• Author: A. Brown
• Journal: Environmental Health Perspectives
• Published: 1974;9:203-4
• Cited by: 6 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy.

In plain English

This is a short commentary by a Mayo Clinic pathologist. It is not a research study and reports no new data. The author discussed whether asbestos fibers spread through the lymph and blood. The author cited an earlier paper by Godwin and Jagatic that, according to the author, found fibers in organs throughout the body, including the spleen and lymph nodes, of patients with both asbestosis and mesothelioma. The author also cited a study by Kanazawa and colleagues in which crocidolite injected under the skin of rodents was found in nearby lymph nodes. The author wrote that fibers apparently can cross barriers such as blood vessel walls and the lining of the stomach and intestines. The author called for study of how fiber uptake depends on size and chemistry, including crocidolite and chrysotile, of how fast fibers clear from the lung, kidney, brain and other organs, and of what damage they cause. The author concluded that knowing the injury reaction and tissue dose-response would help determine how much asbestos, and what kind, if any, humans can safely tolerate.

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: commentary (opinion piece; no original data)
• Who was studied: No population was studied. The commentary discusses earlier work on patients with both asbestosis and mesothelioma (Godwin and Jagatic) and on rodents injected with crocidolite (Kanazawa et al.).
• Exposure: Asbestos fibers in general. Crocidolite is named in the cited animal study, and crocidolite and chrysotile are named as fiber types that should be compared.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that knowing the tissue injury reaction and the tissue dose-response curve would help determine how much asbestos, and what kind, if any, humans can safely tolerate.

Related studies

• The global spread of asbestos — A.L. Frank, T.K. Joshi (2014)
• BioKnife, a uPA activity-dependent oncolytic Sendai virus, eliminates pleural spread of malignant mesothelioma via simultaneous stimulation of uPA expression — Y. Morodomi, T. Yano, et al. (2012)
• Miliary spread of malignant pleural mesothelioma without a clinically identifiable pleural tumour — A.W. Musk, J. Dewar, et al. (1991)
• Cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal perfusion with chemotherapy in children with peritoneal tumor spread: A French nationwide study over 14 years — A. Scalabre, P. Philippe-Chomette, et al. (2018)
• Perineural spread of malignant mesothelioma with spinal intramedullary involvement — M. Tanwar, C.B. Simone, et al. (2014)
• Case reports of primary pulmonary adenocarcinoma with pleural spread: so-called pseudomesotheliomatous adenocarcinoma — R. Saito, A. Kasajima, et al. (2012)

Browse more research in Environmental Health Perspectives, or return to medical research.