Pneumoconioses (1988)

This document is a review chapter, not an original study. It describes what was then known about lung function in the pneumoconioses, which are lung diseases caused by inhaling mineral or organic dust. The author grouped the mineral-dust diseases by how much dust and how much scarring (fibrosis) the lung contains. The chapter covered coal workers' pneumoconiosis, silicosis, asbestosis, and disease from aluminum and beryllium, plus organic-dust conditions such as byssinosis in cotton workers. For asbestosis, the chapter reported a loss of lung volume, especially vital capacity, and a fall in diffusing capacity, which it called an invariable finding. It called a rise in the alveolar-arterial oxygen difference the most consistent disturbance. It described the reaction of the pleura (the lining of the lung) in asbestosis as usually severe. That reaction ranged from adhesions to dense fibrous pleurisy and, in some kinds of exposure, mesothelioma. No asbestos fiber types were named. The author concluded that function changes broadly matched the known pathology, but that guessing an individual's lung function cannot replace direct measurement.

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. 003385.

We publish pages from a book 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.