Reply to Comment on Małgorzata Krówczyńska and Ewa Wilk. Environmental and Occupational Exposure to Asbestos as a Result of Consumption and Use in Poland. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 2611

Our plain-English summary of Reply to Comment on Małgorzata Krówczyńska and Ewa Wilk. Environmental and Occupational Exposure to Asbestos as a Result of Consumption and Use in Poland. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 2611, by M. Krówczyńska, E. Wilk (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020).

The study

• Authors: M. Krówczyńska, E. Wilk
• Journal: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Published: 2020;17(6)
• Type of article: Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

Thank you for the possibility of enabling us to provide a response to the comment on our paper "Environmental and Occupational Exposure to Asbestos as a Result of Consumption and Use in Poland" [...].

In plain English

This is not a research study but a short reply letter. The authors responded to a published comment on their 2019 paper about environmental and occupational asbestos exposure from consumption and use in Poland. The letter reported no new data. The authors defended their use of Poland's National Cancer Registry. They described it as a nationwide, state-level database administered by the Ministry of Health and said it was assessed as reliable. They treated malignant mesothelioma, classified in ICD-10 as C.45, as a unique indicator of asbestos exposure. They disagreed with the comment's statement that occupational exposure data are the only available, reliable source on the origin of mesothelioma, calling it a too-far-reaching conclusion. They stated that their number of malignant mesothelioma cases came from a report for the Ministry of Economy based on data from the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine. They said Szeszenia-Dąbrowska and colleagues gave the same figure, 138. The authors acknowledged discrepancies between figures the Nofer Institute has presented in different publications. They said they hoped the institute would make its data available online.

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: Reply letter responding to a published comment on the authors' earlier paper; no new data collected or analyzed
• Who was studied: No new study population. The letter discusses the data sources behind the authors' 2019 paper on Poland: the National Cancer Registry and a report for the Ministry of Economy based on Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine data.
• Exposure: Asbestos exposure in Poland, with malignant mesothelioma (ICD-10 C.45) used as an indicator of exposure; no fiber types are named in the letter
• Main results:
  • The authors stated that the National Cancer Registry, a nationwide database, was assessed as a reliable source on malignant mesothelioma cases
  • The authors disagreed with the comment's statement that occupational exposure data are the only available, reliable source on the origin of mesothelioma, calling it a too-far-reaching conclusion
  • The authors stated that the number of malignant mesothelioma cases analyzed in their paper and in the Ministry of Economy report was 138, a figure also given by Szeszenia-Dąbrowska et al. of the Nofer Institute
• The authors' conclusion: The authors held that all necessary data were used to provide reliable information. They expressed the hope that the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine would make its data available online.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors acknowledged discrepancies between data the Nofer Institute presented in various publications, including the reports to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy that they cited as data sources

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Occupational Exposure.

Related studies

• Comment on Małgorzata Krówczyńska and Ewa Wilk. Environmental and Occupational Exposure to Asbestos as a Result of Consumption and Use in Poland. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 2611 — B. Świątkowska, W. Hanke (2020)
• Reply to Mirabelli et al. Is Mesothelioma Unrelated to the Lung Asbestos Burden? Comment on "Visonà et al. Inorganic Fiber Lung Burden in Subjects with Occupational and/or Anthropogenic Environmental Asbestos Exposure in Broni (Pavia, Northern Italy): An SEM-EDS Study on Autoptic Samples. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 2053" — S.D. Visonà, S. Capella, et al. (2021)
• Environmental and Occupational Exposure to Asbestos as a Result of Consumption and Use in Poland — M. Krówczyńska, E. Wilk (2019)
• Is Mesothelioma Unrelated to the Lung Asbestos Burden? Comment on Visonà et al. Inorganic Fiber Lung Burden in Subjects with Occupational and/or Anthropogenic Environmental Asbestos Exposure in Broni (Pavia, Northern Italy): An SEM-EDS Study on Autoptic Samples. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 2053 — D. Mirabelli, A. Angelini, et al. (2021)
• Correction: Saito et al. Sex-Specific Mortality from Asbestos-Related Diseases, Lung and Ovarian Cancer in Municipalities with High Asbestos Consumption, Brazil, 2000-2017. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 3656 — C.A. Saito, M.A. Bussacos, et al. (2022)
• Spatial analysis of asbestos exposure and occupational health care in Poland during the period 2004-2013 — M. Krówczyńska, E. Wilk (2018)

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