Cancer risk of asbestos exposure (1977)

This 1977 book chapter reviewed what was then known about asbestos and cancer. It drew on others' research and the author's group's earlier studies of insulation and amosite-factory workers. Among 632 New York-area insulation union members on the 1943 rolls, 89 had died of lung cancer by the end of 1974, against 12.2 expected. Among 17,800 US and Canadian insulation workers followed from 1967 to 1975, 427 died of lung cancer against 92.28 expected. Of its 2003 deaths, 93 were attributed to peritoneal mesothelioma; including pleural cases, 7.19% were from mesothelioma. No mesotheliomas were seen in less than 15 years from first exposure. Among 933 amosite-factory workers, 83 died of lung cancer against 12.45 expected. The observed-to-expected ratio was 3.87 for those working 3 months or less and 10.56 for those working 1 year or more. Among asbestos workers, neither pleural nor peritoneal mesothelioma was associated with cigarette smoking: pleural deaths per 1000 man-years were 0.38 for smokers and 0.39 for nonsmokers, peritoneal 0.73 and 0.83. The author concluded that, overall, disease was much more likely with heavier exposure.

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. 002705.

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.