No indication that mineral wool causes mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of No indication that mineral wool causes mesothelioma, by J.P. Bonde (American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2013).

The study

• Author: J.P. Bonde
• Journal: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
• Published: 2013;188(7):873
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

This item is a letter to the editor with a reply from the author of the study it criticizes. Jens Peter Bonde of Bispebjerg University Hospital, Copenhagen, commented on a French case-control study by Lacourt and coworkers. That study concluded that occupational mineral wool exposure seemed to be associated with pleural mesothelioma and that mineral wool and asbestos might have a synergistic joint effect. Bonde wrote that this finding was surprising given previous evidence, citing a study by Kjaerheim and colleagues of lung cancer among rock and slag wool production workers. He noted that cases came from a hospital-based case-control study (1987–1996) and from the French National Mesothelioma Surveillance Program (1998–2006), while references came from two population-based samples from the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance. He argued that this violated the principle that controls must be drawn from the same study base as the cases. He also argued that the higher prevalence of blue-collar workers among cases showed that matching on socioeconomic group had failed. Finally, he said that exposures to asbestos, mineral wool and silica were too highly correlated to separate their effects, and he concluded that these concerns undermined the study's conclusions. In reply, Aude Lacourt stated that comparing mesothelioma results with a lung cancer study was irrelevant. She said cases and controls came from the same general-population source and that the two case sets did not differ significantly by socioeconomic status. She added that controls were deliberately not matched on socioeconomic status, to avoid overmatching. She said the original article had discussed exposure correlations, had not stated that mineral wool causes mesothelioma, and had called for further studies.

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 that reported no new data. The author commented on a French case-control study by Lacourt and coworkers of mesothelioma and occupational coexposure to asbestos, mineral wool and silica. That study had concluded that mineral wool exposure seemed associated with pleural mesothelioma. The author called that finding surprising given earlier evidence. The author raised three objections. First, cases came from a hospital-based study and a national surveillance program, but controls came from two population-based samples, contrary to the principle that controls be drawn from the same study base. Second, more blue-collar workers among cases suggested that matching on socioeconomic group had failed. Third, the three exposures were highly correlated, so their effects could hardly be separated. The author concluded that these concerns undermined the study's conclusions. A reply from Lacourt, printed with the letter, disputed the first two points but said the article had already stated that the independent effect of mineral wool or silica was difficult to assess alongside occupational asbestos exposure. It said controls were deliberately not matched on socioeconomic status and that the study had not claimed mineral wool causes mesothelioma.

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 published case-control study; no new data
• Who was studied: No population studied by the author; the letter discusses a French case-control study of mesothelioma by Lacourt and coworkers (cases 1987–1996 and 1998–2006)
• Exposure: occupational coexposure to asbestos, mineral wool and silica, as studied in the criticized article
• Main results:
  • The letter argued that the criticized study's finding linking mineral wool to pleural mesothelioma was surprising given previous evidence
  • The letter argued that the criticized study's authors called their findings explorative but did not discuss limitations of how the reference group was sampled
  • The letter stated that cases came from a French hospital-based case-control study (1987–1996) and the French National Mesothelioma Surveillance Program (1998–2006)
  • The letter stated that the controls were selected from two population-based samples
  • The letter argued that this sampling violated the principle that controls be drawn from the study base that produced the cases
  • The letter argued that the higher prevalence of blue-collar workers among cases showed that matching on socioeconomic group was unsuccessful
  • The letter argued that because asbestos, mineral wool and silica exposures were highly correlated, their separate effects could hardly be separated
  • In the printed reply, Lacourt argued that comparing a mesothelioma study with a lung cancer study was irrelevant
  • In the reply, Lacourt stated that the two sets of cases were compared by socioeconomic status and showed no significant differences
  • In the reply, Lacourt stated that controls were not matched on socioeconomic status because doing so would have caused overmatching
  • In the reply, Lacourt said the article had already stated that the independent effect of mineral wool or silica was difficult to assess in the presence of occupational asbestos exposure
  • In the reply, Lacourt stated that the study did not claim mineral wool causes mesothelioma
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that these methodological concerns undermined the conclusions of the Lacourt study

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma, Case-Control Study, Pleural Mesothelioma, Lung Cancer.

Related studies

• Reply: No indication that mineral wool causes mesothelioma — A. Lacourt (2013)
• Pleural mesothelioma and occupational coexposure to asbestos, mineral wool, and silica — A. Lacourt, C. Gramond, et al. (2013)
• Risk of lung cancer associated with occupational exposure to mineral wools: updating knowledge from a french population-based case-control study, the ICARE study — F. Guida, S. Paget-Bailly, et al. (2013)
• Mortality among a cohort of US man-made mineral fiber workers: 1985 follow-up — G.M. Marsh, P.E. Enterline, et al. (1990)
• Cytotoxicity of respirable dusts from industrial minerals: comparison of two naturally occurring and two man-made silicates — D. Nadeau, L. Fouquette-Couture, et al. (1987)
• Production of reactive oxygen species by phagocytic cells after exposure to glass wool and stone wool fibres - effect of fibre preincubation in aqueous solution — T. Zoller, W.J. Zeller (2000)

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