Re: Malignant mesothelioma from neighborhood exposure to anthophyllite asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Re: Malignant mesothelioma from neighborhood exposure to anthophyllite asbestos, by M. Kottek, D. Kilpatrick (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2002).

The study

• Authors: M. Kottek, D. Kilpatrick
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 2002;41(6):514
• Type of article: Comment, Letter
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This was a letter to the editor, not a study of patients. The authors responded to an earlier case report by Rom and colleagues of mesothelioma linked to neighborhood exposure to anthophyllite asbestos, and sought to correct that report's statement that anthophyllite was mined only in Finland and Japan. The authors reported that five hundred and ten tons of anthophyllite were mined in the Bindi Bindi area of Western Australia during the period 1942–49. The ore was taken by railway to Perth and milled in a mainly suburban area. Most of the fiber was exported to unknown destinations, and some was used locally for boiler lagging and acid-resistant and oil filters. It was not known what dust control, if any, the mill had. The authors judged it most likely that this source had caused no environmental mesothelioma cases, but also unlikely that a link would have been made for a mill neighbor who did develop mesothelioma. The authors noted similar small-scale production of anthophyllite and tremolite elsewhere in Australia. They concluded that such small sources need careful identification to avoid misclassifying exposure in epidemiological studies.

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 (commentary responding to a published case report; no new patients or data analysed)
• Who was studied: No people were studied. The letter described an anthophyllite mine in the Bindi Bindi area of Western Australia (1942–49) and a mill in a predominantly suburban area of Perth
• Exposure: Anthophyllite asbestos from open-cast mining at Bindi Bindi and milling in suburban Perth; possible environmental (neighborhood) exposure
• Main results:
  • Five hundred and ten tons of anthophyllite were mined in the Bindi Bindi area of Western Australia during the period 1942–49. The authors offered this as a correction to the earlier report's claim that anthophyllite was mined only in Finland and Japan
  • The ore was transported by railway to Perth and milled there in a predominantly suburban area
  • Most of the fiber was exported to unknown destinations; some was used locally for boiler lagging, acid-resistant filters and oil filters
  • The authors judged it most likely that no environmental mesothelioma cases had been caused by this source, but also unlikely that an association would have been made for a mesothelioma case in a neighbor of the mill
  • Similar small-scale production of fibrous minerals, including anthophyllite and tremolite, had occurred at other Australian locations
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that avoiding exposure misclassification in epidemiological studies will require careful identification of such small-scale sources. They presumed that similar small-scale production was a global phenomenon, while noting that the strength of the association between residential asbestos exposure and disease remains unsettled.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • It was not known what dust extraction system, if any, was in place at the mill
  • The current condition of the mine site was not known
  • The destinations of most of the exported fiber were unknown

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Malignant Mesothelioma, Environmental Exposure, Anthophyllite.

Related studies

• Malignant mesothelioma from neighborhood exposure to anthophyllite asbestos — W.N. Rom, S.P. Hammar, et al. (2001)
• Anthophyllite asbestos: state of the science review — S.H. Gaffney, M. Grespin, et al. (2017)
• Incidence of cancer among anthophyllite asbestos miners in Finland — L.O. Meurman, E. Pukkala, et al. (1994)
• Four cases of mesothelioma among Finnish anthophyllite miners — A. Karjalainen, L.O. Meurman, et al. (1994)
• High frequency and severity of pleural changes in former workers exposed to anthophyllite associated with other contaminating amphibole asbestos in Brazil — R.F. Macedo, E.M.F.P. Cerqueira, et al. (2019)
• Rat model demonstrates a high risk of tremolite but a low risk of anthophyllite for mesothelial carcinogenesis — D. Aierken, Y. Okazaki, et al. (2014)

Browse more research in American Journal of Industrial Medicine, or return to medical research.