Preventing pleural mesothelioma in patients with recognizable asbestos-related pleural plaques

Our plain-English summary of Preventing pleural mesothelioma in patients with recognizable asbestos-related pleural plaques, by V. Acton (The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, 2014).

The study

• Author: V. Acton
• Journal: The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
• Published: 2014;148(4):1763
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a short letter to the editor, not a research study. It presented no patients, measurements or statistics. The author, a radiologist in private practice in Sydney, Australia, was responding to an article published in the July 2014 issue of the same journal on surgical complications in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. The author stated that a very large group of people treated with pleurodesis as young adults for complications of spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung) had reportedly never developed malignant pleural mesothelioma. The author added that many of them had undoubtedly been exposed to asbestos before or after the procedure. The letter gave no data or source for these statements and did not name any asbestos fiber type. The author concluded that consideration must be given to the value of pleurodesis in preventing pleural mesothelioma in people with evidence of simple asbestos-related pleural change. The supplied text also includes the end of an unrelated letter about antiplatelet drugs, and the start of a reply to this letter that is cut off.

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 (opinion and suggestion; no study was carried out)
• Who was studied: No one was studied. The letter refers, without data, to people treated with pleurodesis as young adults for complications of spontaneous pneumothorax.
• Exposure: Asbestos exposure in general, with no fiber type, job or dose given. The suggestion concerns people with evidence of simple asbestos-related pleural change; the title refers to asbestos-related pleural plaques.
• Main results:
  • No study results. The author stated, without giving data or a source, that people treated with pleurodesis for spontaneous pneumothorax had reportedly never developed malignant pleural mesothelioma.
  • The author stated, without giving data, that many of these people had undoubtedly been exposed to asbestos before or after pleurodesis.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that consideration must be given to the value of pleurodesis in preventing pleural mesothelioma in people with evidence of simple asbestos-related pleural change.

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Pleural Mesothelioma, Pleural Plaques.

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• Does surgery improve survival of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma?: a multicenter retrospective analysis of 1365 consecutive patients — P. Bovolato, C. Casadio, et al. (2014)
• Malignant pleural mesothelioma and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Database: an analysis of surgical morbidity and mortality — B.M. Burt, R.B. Cameron, et al. (2014)
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