Environmental Lung Cancer

Our plain-English summary of Environmental Lung Cancer, by W.C. Hueper (1951).

The study

• Author: W.C. Hueper
• Published: Industrial Medicine And Surgery 20(2):49-62, February (1951)
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library, J-M no. 001915. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This 1951 article by W.C. Hueper of the National Cancer Institute was a review of published reports, not a new study. The author surveyed evidence linking lung and other respiratory cancers to environmental and occupational agents, including soot, tar, tobacco smoke, mineral oils, arsenic, asbestos, chromates, nickel refining, X-rays and radioactive ores. On asbestos, the author reported that cases of asbestosis complicated by lung cancer had been recorded from England, Germany, Canada and the United States. In the cases reviewed, exposure time ranged from three to 27 years (average 15 years), and the latent period after exposure ended was 10 to 12 years. The male-to-female ratio, citing Merewether, was 2.4:1, and the mean age was about 52 years. An experiment exposing guinea pigs to asbestos dust (Vorwald and Karr) was negative, while mouse experiments (Nordmann and Sorge) apparently gave positive results. The author judged that a causal relation between asbestosis and lung cancer appeared very likely. Overall, the author concluded that some respiratory cancers are attributable to inhaling more or less well defined chemical or physical agents.

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: Narrative review of published reports, statistics and animal experiments on environmental and occupational causes of respiratory cancer
• Who was studied: No study population of its own. The article reviewed published reports on lung and respiratory cancer in the general population and in occupational groups. For asbestos, these were cases of asbestosis with lung cancer recorded in England, Germany, Canada and the United States.
• Exposure: Many agents were reviewed: soot, engine exhaust, tar fumes, tobacco smoke, petroleum and shale oils, isopropyl oil, arsenic, asbestos, chromium and chromates, nickel refining, X-radiation and radioactive substances. Asbestos was discussed as asbestosis; no fiber types were named.
• Main results:
  • In the reviewed cases of asbestosis with lung cancer, exposure time ranged from three to 27 years, with an average of 15 years.
  • In these asbestosis cancer cases, the latent period after exposure ended was 10 to 12 years.
  • For asbestosis cancer, the male-female ratio according to Merewether was 2.4:1, and the mean age was about 52 years.
  • In animal studies the author reviewed, guinea pigs exposed to asbestos dust (Vorwald and Karr) gave negative results. Mouse inhalation experiments by Nordmann and Sorge were described as apparently positive.
  • Citing Machle and Gregorius, the author reported that the lung cancer incidence rate among American chromate workers averaged 16 times the expected rate.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that some respiratory cancers are attributable to inhaling a number of more or less well defined chemical or physical agents. The author judged a causal relation between asbestosis and lung cancer to be very likely.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated that the occupational data behind many reports finding no link between particular jobs and lung cancer were generally too inadequate to be of definite value.
  • The author stated that the Montana county observations on lung cancer and arsenic were of limited value: they covered too short a period and too few cases, and lacked detailed occupational data.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Lung Cancer.

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