Pathological and environmental aspects of asbestos-associated diseases

Our plain-English summary of Pathological and environmental aspects of asbestos-associated diseases, by J.S. Jones (Medicine, Science, and the Law, 1974).

The study

• Author: J.S. Jones
• Journal: Medicine, Science, and the Law
• Published: 1974;14(3):152-8
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 002355).

In plain English

This 1974 article was a review, not a new study. It described the main asbestos fibre types (chrysotile, and the amphiboles crocidolite, amosite and anthophyllite), their uses, and the pathology of asbestosis, lung cancer, mesothelioma of the pleura or peritoneum, and pleural plaques. It summarised other researchers' work. Doll (1955) reported that asbestos workers had a lung cancer death rate ten times that of the general population. Selikoff and colleagues (1968) reported that asbestos insulation workers who smoked regularly had ninety times the lung cancer risk of men who neither smoked nor worked with asbestos. The author noted a usual delay of twenty to forty years between first exposure and mesothelioma. The author cited an earlier report of the author's own: sixteen mesotheliomas, appearing from 1964 onwards, among Nottingham women exposed to crocidolite while making gas mask filters between 1939 and 1945. A cited autopsy survey found asbestos in lung tissue in 39 per cent of cases from Finland and 7 per cent from Nottingham. The author concluded that dust control and, above all, education of those handling asbestos were necessary.

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: Narrative review of published work on asbestos-associated diseases
• Who was studied: No study population of its own. The article reviewed published reports on asbestos workers, exposed groups and autopsy lung-tissue surveys.
• Exposure: Asbestos dust from occupational and environmental sources. Fibre types discussed were chrysotile and the amphiboles crocidolite, amosite and anthophyllite.
• Main results:
  • The diseases the review described as possibly associated with inhaling asbestos dust were asbestosis, bronchial carcinoma (lung cancer), mesothelioma of the pleura or peritoneum, and pleural plaques.
  • Cited study (Doll, 1955): asbestos workers had a death rate from lung cancer ten times that of the general population.
  • Cited study (Selikoff, Hammond and Churg, 1968), on US asbestos insulation workers. Those who regularly smoked cigarettes had eight times the lung cancer risk of smokers not exposed to asbestos dust. They had ninety times the risk of men who neither smoked nor worked with asbestos.
  • The review stated that in most mesothelioma cases there was a latent interval of twenty to forty years between first exposure to asbestos and the tumour.
  • Cited earlier report by the author (Jones, 1968), on women in Nottingham exposed to crocidolite while making gas mask filter units between 1939 and 1945, some for only a few months. Sixteen had developed mesotheliomata from 1964 onwards, some twenty-five to thirty years later.
  • Cited studies on anthophyllite: Finnish anthophyllite asbestos workers had three to five times the expected lung cancer death rate if exposed for longer than ten years (Kilviluoto and Meurman, 1969). The review stated that no mesothelioma cases had been recorded in association with anthophyllite asbestos.
  • Cited multi-centre autopsy survey (Pooley and colleagues, 1969): asbestos was detected in lung tissue in 39 per cent of autopsies from Finland, 30 per cent from Belfast, 25 per cent from London (a), 24 per cent from Glasgow, 8 per cent from Dorchester and 7 per cent from Nottingham.
  • In autopsy lung tissue from an area of London, asbestos was detected in 0 per cent of people who died in 1936, 3 per cent in 1946 and 14 per cent in 1956. The 1966 figure is not clearly legible in the scanned table.
  • The author stated that in most cases of urban contamination of lung tissue only small numbers of fibres were present. The author did not suggest that these posed a significant potential health hazard, but said the observations provided a base line for future studies.
  • The author stated that pleural plaques in themselves are not clinically harmful but act as a marker of asbestos exposure.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the occupational and environmental exposures described underline the need for dust control and, above all, for educating everyone who may handle asbestos products. The author stated that the solution ultimately depends on individual workers being informed about the materials, the hazards, respiratory protection and dust suppression.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Asbestosis, Lung cancer, Mesothelioma, Peritoneal mesothelioma.

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