Mesothelioma and exposure to asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Mesothelioma and exposure to asbestos, by W.K. Morgan (BMJ, 1991).

The study

• Author: W.K. Morgan
• Journal: BMJ
• Published: 1991;302(6785):1153
• Type of article: Letter
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 004166).

In plain English

This item is a letter to the editor of the BMJ, not a research study, and it reports no new data. The author responded to a BMJ news report by Peter Pockley on white asbestos and mesothelioma, saying it contained misleading or controversial statements. The report had quoted an unpublished paper by Dr James Leigh and colleagues as saying that mesothelioma risk is related to the degree of asbestos exposure. The author wrote that this was not new: Whitwell and colleagues had made the observation almost two decades earlier, and Doll and Peto had reaffirmed it. The author took more issue with the report's statement on the relative risk of mesothelioma from crocidolite, chrysotile, and amosite. The author stated that published evidence indicated mesothelioma is rare in people exposed to chrysotile alone. In support, the author cited a study by McDonald and McDonald, not the author's own, of almost 8000 deaths among miners in Quebec. That study found about 30 mesothelioma deaths, seven of them in miners exposed to crocidolite. The author concluded that most available evidence suggested chrysotile does not induce mesothelioma unless contaminated by the amphibole tremolite.

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 (correspondence) commenting on a news report; no original research
• Who was studied: No people were studied. The letter comments on a BMJ news report by Peter Pockley and on an unpublished paper by Dr James Leigh and colleagues quoted in that report.
• Exposure: The relative risk of mesothelioma from crocidolite, chrysotile, and amosite, and chrysotile contaminated by the amphibole tremolite (discussed, not measured)
• Main results:
  • The author argued that the link between mesothelioma risk and degree of exposure was not new. The author said it had been made by Whitwell et al almost two decades earlier and later reaffirmed by Doll and Peto.
  • The author stated that all published evidence indicated mesothelioma is rare in subjects exposed to chrysotile alone.
  • The author cited a study by McDonald and McDonald (another study, not the author's) of almost 8000 deaths in miners in Quebec. It found about 30 deaths from mesothelioma, seven of which occurred in miners exposed to crocidolite.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that most of the evidence then available suggested chrysotile does not induce mesothelioma unless contaminated by the amphibole tremolite.

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: Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• The morbidity and mortality of vermiculite miners and millers exposed to tremolite-actinolite: Part III. Radiographic findings — H.E. Amandus, R. Althouse, et al. (1987)
• Respiratory effects of exposure to dust in taconite mining and processing — T.C. Clark, V.A. Harrington, et al. (1980)
• Rheumatoid pneumoconiosis in association with asbestosis — W.K. Morgan (1964)
• On talc, tremolite, and tergiversation — R. Reger, W.K. Morgan (1990)
• Asbestos and cancer: history and public policy — W.K. Morgan (1992)
• The pneumoconioses — W. Tsai, W.K. Morgan (1996)

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