The San Francisco Bay epidemiology studies on asbestos in drinking water and cancer incidence: relationship to studies in other locations and pointers for further research

Our plain-English summary of The San Francisco Bay epidemiology studies on asbestos in drinking water and cancer incidence: relationship to studies in other locations and pointers for further research, by M.S. Kanarek (Environmental Health Perspectives, 1983).

The study

• Author: M.S. Kanarek
• Journal: Environmental Health Perspectives
• Published: 1983;53:105-6
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 000616).

In plain English

This article was a short commentary, not a new study, and it reported no new data. The author, who is listed among the authors of the two San Francisco Bay studies it discusses, gave views on why those studies of asbestos in drinking water and cancer incidence found generally more positive results than similar ecological studies in Puget Sound, Connecticut and Duluth. The author offered four possible explanations. The first was that the Bay Area results were spurious or the other studies insensitive, which the author considered doubtful. The second was that the San Francisco Bay study used the largest population and so had more statistical power. The third was differences in fiber amounts, fiber length and follow-up time. The fourth was that the Bay Area population may have been exposed to a cocarcinogen, or not exposed to a protective factor, possibly in food rather than water. The author called for population-based incidence case-control studies of stomach, pancreas and peritoneal cancers. The author noted that a misdiagnosed peritoneal mesothelioma would most likely be called pancreatic cancer, and suggested the San Francisco Bay Area as a most fruitful location for such a study.

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: Commentary (opinion piece discussing earlier ecological epidemiology studies); no new data
• Who was studied: No population was studied. The commentary discusses ecological studies of asbestos in drinking water and cancer from San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound, Connecticut and Duluth. The author is listed as an author of both San Francisco Bay studies cited.
• Exposure: Asbestos in drinking water (fiber types not named in the article)
• Main results:
  • First explanation (author's view): the Bay Area results might be spurious, or the other studies insensitive. The author considered this doubtful.
  • Second explanation (author's view): statistical power. The San Francisco Bay study used the largest population and so could detect associations for cancers of low incidence.
  • Third explanation (author's view): differences in fiber length, fiber amounts and follow-up. Longer fibers may have been absent in Puget Sound, asbestos counts in Connecticut were low compared with the Bay Area, and only now had enough years passed in Duluth.
  • Fourth explanation (author's view): the Bay Area population may be exposed to a cocarcinogen, or not exposed to a protective factor. Neither would have to be in drinking water; food was also a candidate.
  • The author noted that a misdiagnosed peritoneal mesothelioma would most likely be called a pancreatic cancer.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that population-based incidence (not mortality) case-control studies should now be done on stomach, pancreas and peritoneal cancers. These should gather detailed exposure and lifestyle histories, and the San Francisco Bay Area would be a most fruitful location.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Epidemiology.

Related studies

• Asbestos in drinking water and cancer incidence in the San Francisco Bay area — M.S. Kanarek, P.M. Conforti, et al. (1980)
• "Asbestos in drinking water and cancer incidence in the San Francisco Bay area" — I.T. Higgins (1981)
• "Asbestos in drinking water and cancer incidence in the San Francisco Bay area" — K. Browne (1982)
• Epidemiology study of the use of asbestos-cement pipe for the distribution of drinking water in Escambia County, Florida — J.R. Millette, G.F. Craun, et al. (1983)
• Cancer incidence in relation to asbestos in drinking water in the Puget Sound region — L. Polissar, R.K. Severson, et al. (1982)
• Cancer incidence following exposure to drinking water with asbestos leachate — H.L. Howe, P.E. Wolfgang, et al. (1989)

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