Tissue response to intraperitoneal asbestos with preliminary report of acute toxicity of heart-treated asbestos in mice

Our plain-English summary of Tissue response to intraperitoneal asbestos with preliminary report of acute toxicity of heart-treated asbestos in mice, by J. Jagatic, M.E. Rubnitz, M.C. Godwin, et al (Environmental Research, 1967).

The study

• Authors: J. Jagatic, M.E. Rubnitz, M.C. Godwin, R.W. Weiskopf
• Journal: Environmental Research
• Published: 1967;1(3):217-30
• Cited by: 12 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Intraperitoneal asbestos not only produced fibrosis, but a special and peculiar type of fibrosis which was proliferative, granulomatous and invasive, and histologically similar to mesothelioma, although morphologic evidence of actual malignancy was not obtained. Further, asbestos fibers exposed to high temperature produced a high degree of toxicity in experimental animals; this resulted in a 60% mortality rate.

PubMed has no abstract for this study. This is the authors' abstract, copied from the article.

In plain English

In this animal experiment, mice were injected in the abdomen with a commercial asbestos powder described as roughly 50% chrysotile, or with talc for comparison. Of 162 mice studied, 118 received asbestos and 44 talc. Groups were examined at six times up to 343 days. At first both groups showed similar foreign-body granulomas, though fibroblastic activity was more prominent in the asbestos group. Later, asbestos-injected mice developed fibrous plaques that coated the intestinal surfaces and penetrated the outer intestinal layers and the capsule of the liver. At 343 days, 10 of 15 asbestos mice had these plaques and invasive granulomas, while none of 12 talc mice did. The authors described the reaction as histologically similar to mesothelioma but obtained no morphologic evidence of actual malignancy. In a second experiment, asbestos heated to 1000°C for 3 hours killed 30 of 50 injected mice within 48 hours. There were no deaths among mice given unheated asbestos or talc. Testing found the heated material had become mainly forsterite, an olivine-group mineral. The authors concluded that intraperitoneal asbestos produced a peculiar proliferative, granulomatous and invasive fibrosis, different from the reaction to talc.

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: Animal experiment (intraperitoneal injection in mice, with talc-injected controls), plus a second experiment on acute toxicity of heat-treated asbestos
• Who was studied: White male mice at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Hines, Illinois. 200 mice were obtained and 38 died early from causes the authors judged unrelated to the experiment. Of 162 studied, 118 were injected with asbestos and 44 with talc. A second experiment used 200 mice: 100 given unheated asbestos, 50 given talc, and 50 given heat-treated asbestos.
• Exposure: 0.5 cc of a 50% suspension in saline of commercial asbestos powder mined in Quebec, Canada. USPHS analysis described it as roughly 50% chrysotile, with the remainder largely antigorite. Controls received a talc suspension. In the second experiment, the asbestos powder was heated to 1000°C for 3 hours before injection.
• Main results:
  • At 26 days (22 asbestos and 12 talc mice, which died after an air-conditioning failure), the findings were similar in both groups: foreign-body granulomas, with more prominent fibroblastic activity in the asbestos group.
  • At 57 days, the asbestos group had flat fibrous plaque-like structures (spelled 'placques' in the article) coating the gastrointestinal serosa and penetrating the outer intestinal layers and the capsule of the liver. Talc lesions stayed localized as abscesses or small granulomas.
  • At 112 days, all 20 asbestos-group mice showed marked fibrosis, compared with 1 of 5 talc controls.
  • At 170 days, all 20 asbestos-group mice had fibrous plaques, and 15 had granulomas penetrating into muscle, liver and intestinal serosa. The authors described the scattered mitoses they saw as proliferative, not necessarily malignant.
  • At 343 days, all 15 asbestos-group mice had extensive fibrosis and foreign-body granulomas, and 10 of the 15 also had serosal plaques and invasive granulomas. All 12 talc controls developed foreign-body granulomas, but none showed proliferative invasive granulomas or plaques.
  • The authors described the asbestos-induced fibrosis as histologically similar to mesothelioma, but morphologic evidence of actual malignancy was not obtained.
  • In the heat-treated asbestos group, all 50 mice showed severe signs of toxicity within 24 hours and 9 had died. 26 were dead at 36 hours and 30 at 48 hours, a 60% mortality rate. The remaining 20 recovered after about 4 days.
  • There were no deaths among the 100 mice given unheated asbestos or the 50 given talc in the heat-treatment experiment.
  • X-ray diffraction showed that the heat-treated material's major constituent was forsterite, an olivine-group mineral, with enstatite as a minor constituent. The USPHS report noted that chrysotile converts to olivine on heating, at around 750°C.
  • Mice that survived the heat-treated asbestos recovered well and were alive seven months later.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that intraperitoneal asbestos produced not only fibrosis but a special and peculiar type of fibrosis that was proliferative, granulomatous and invasive, quite different from the response to talc. They also concluded that asbestos fibers exposed to high temperature were highly toxic to mice.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The talc used for the control group was not analyzed further.
  • The first group, scheduled for examination at 30 days, died unexpectedly at 26 days after the laboratory air-conditioning system failed.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Talc and vermiculite.

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

Related studies

• Acute and chronic effects of intraperitoneal injection of two types of asbestos in rats with a study of the histopathogenesis and ultrastructure of resulting mesotheliomas — M.L. Shin, H.I. Firminger (1973)
• Asbestos body formation and iron accumulation in mouse peritoneal granulomas after the introduction of crocidolite asbestos fibers — H.K. Koerten, J. Hazekamp, et al. (1990)
• Antibody producing cells in the spleens of mice treated with pathogenic mineral dust — S. Szymaniec, D.M. Brown, et al. (1989)
• Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma treated by cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy: is GLUT1 expression a major prognostic factor? A preliminary study — J. Hommell-Fontaine, S. Isaac, et al. (2013)
• Surgical biopsy studies of omental and peritoneal nodules — D.B. Walsh, G. Williams (1971)
• Epithelial outgrowths from lung tissue following intrapleural injection of asbestos dust in experimental animals — J.M. Davis (1971)

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