Azbestoza U Tvornici Azbestno-Cementnih Proizvoda (Croatian - No Full Translation)

Our plain-English summary of Azbestoza U Tvornici Azbestno-Cementnih Proizvoda (Croatian - No Full Translation), by M. Zorica, M. Saric (1961).

The study

• Authors: M. Zorica, M. Saric
• Published: Arh. hig. rada, 12 (1961) 97, Received for Publication March 10, 1961
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This Croatian-language study examined asbestosis at an asbestos-cement factory at Vranjic near Split, Yugoslavia. The factory made pipes and sheets, mainly from chrysotile asbestos and portland cement. The authors described the process, collected workplace dust samples with a thermoprecipitator and counted particles microscopically, and gave 64 exposed workers (48 men, 16 women) clinical examinations and chest X-rays. Six (4 men, 2 women) were judged to have asbestosis. Three had worked in the mills and disintegrators department (11 workers in all): two current workers and one retired former worker. Two were among the 22 hollander and chamber workers, one among the 7 in cutting, grinding and turning. None of the six had worked less than 5 years. The highest dust counts were in the middle of the hollander and chamber department; the mill department was sampled only while out of order. Some workers had also been exposed to cement dust, which the authors said made the X-rays harder to interpret. The authors concluded that asbestosis occurs in factories making asbestos products, not only in asbestos extraction, the only setting previously reported in their country.

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: Cross-sectional workplace survey: description of the production process, dust measurements, and medical and X-ray examination of exposed workers, with individual descriptions of the six affected workers
• Who was studied: 64 workers (48 men, 16 women) exposed to asbestos dust, permanently or intermittently, at an asbestos-cement products factory at Vranjic near Split, which began operating in 1921. One of the six affected workers was a retired former employee. Examinations took place in May and August (the printed year reads 1939).
• Exposure: Asbestos dust, mostly chrysotile, imported from the USSR, Canada, Venezuela and Rhodesia and also taken from domestic mines. Workers handled it while unloading, storing, milling and disintegrating, mixing in hollanders, and cutting, grinding and turning finished asbestos-cement products. Some workers had also been exposed to cement dust.
• Main results:
  • Asbestosis was found in 6 of the 64 examined workers (4 men and 2 women).
  • Three of the six cases were attributed to the mills and disintegrators department, which had 11 workers in all.
  • Of those three mill-department cases, one was a pensioner who had worked there for 20 years, from 1937 to 1957. The other two were currently employed in the department.
  • Two cases were in the hollander and chamber department, which had 22 workers.
  • One case was in cutting and grinding, which had 7 workers in all.
  • None of the workers with asbestosis had worked less than 5 years.
  • The highest dust counts in the table were in the middle of the hollander and chamber room: 18600 particles in total, 4620 of them fibers. The national maximum allowable concentration was 200 particles per cubic centimetre of air.
  • Of the six workers with asbestosis, four had high blood pressure, and three of those four had sinus inflammation.
  • None of the workers with asbestosis-type lung findings had active tuberculosis.
  • In another group of workers, X-ray shadows were attributed by the authors mainly to cement exposure. Possible early asbestosis in some of them was considered very uncertain.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that, although asbestosis had previously been reported in their country only in the asbestos extracting industry, their investigation showed that it also occurs in factories manufacturing asbestos products.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Air samples in the mills and disintegrators department, which the authors considered the most exposed, were taken while it was out of operation because of a breakdown.
  • Interpreting the X-rays was made harder by combined exposure to asbestos and cement dust.
  • The thermoprecipitator sampling method may fail to capture particles longer than 4-5 microns.
  • Sputum was not examined for asbestos bodies systematically.
  • Because there were few cases, no firmer statement could be made about the relationship between asbestosis and tuberculosis.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Asbestos-Cement, Chrysotile, Chest X-Ray.

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