Lung cancer in asbestosis (1955)

This unsigned Lancet editorial annotation reported no new study; it summarized others' published work on lung cancer in asbestos workers. Doll, examining causes of death in 105 people employed at one asbestos works, found 18 had had lung cancer, 15 with asbestosis. Among 113 men who had worked at least twenty years in places exposed to asbestos dust, Doll found 39 deaths where 15.4 were expected. These included 11 lung cancer deaths against 0.8 expected; the average risk was of the order of ten times that of the general population. In a series of 1205 lung specimens with dust diseases, including 121 of asbestosis, Gloyne reported primary lung neoplasm rates of 20% in male and 10% in female asbestos workers. Barnett found 31 lung cancer deaths among 235 asbestosis-associated deaths during the years 1924–46; the annotation questioned why rates differed between the sexes. It noted that, unlike asbestosis, the main dust diseases of the lungs were not associated with more lung cancer. It said there was no satisfactory explanation of why asbestos fibres should affect the epithelium.

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.

From J-M's medical library

This copy comes from the Johns-Manville medical library. J-M listed it in its medical library index as no. 001867. Barry Castleman cites it in chapter 2, "Cancer" and chapter 4, "Thresholds and Standards", of Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects (5th ed., 2005); see Reading Castleman.

We publish an editorial for research and commentary: it shows what the medical literature in a leading asbestos company's own library said on the subject, and when. Our summary above is our own reading of it. The copyright stays with the publisher.