Mesothelioma In Children

Our plain-English summary of Mesothelioma In Children, by M. Wasserman, D. Wasserman, R. Steinitz, et al (1980).

The study

• Authors: M. Wasserman, D. Wasserman, R. Steinitz, L. Katz, C. Lemesh
• Published: Biological Effects Of Mineral Fibres (J.C. Wagner, Editor), Lyon: Iarc Scientific Publications, Volume 30, Pp. 253-257 (1980)
• Type of article: Conference paper
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library, J-M no. 002578. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This article is a literature review of mesothelioma in children. The supplied text begins partway through, so the article's opening portion is missing. A table listed published childhood cases by age, sex and tumour site: pleural, peritoneal and one pericardial. The authors discussed the role of nonoccupational exposure to asbestos fibres. They stated that the latent period was up to 14 years in children, compared with 20-55 years in adults. A second table listed adults with mesothelioma who were exposed in childhood, from the environment or through a parent's job. In these adults, the authors noted, the latent period was similar to that after occupational exposure. They suggested that the children's exposure took place before birth. As support they cited the short latent period, these adult cases, and another group's animal experiment that found asbestos fibres in foetuses after asbestos dust was injected into the mothers' veins. The authors concluded that transfer of fibres across the placenta, and the immune system before birth and in infancy, may explain some differences between childhood and adult mesothelioma. No fibre types were named.

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: literature review
• Who was studied: Published cases of mesothelioma in children (Table 1), and published cases of mesothelioma in adults who were exposed to asbestos in childhood (Table 2)
• Exposure: Nonoccupational exposure to asbestos fibres. The adult cases in Table 2 had environmental exposure or exposure through a parent's occupation. No fibre types are named.
• Main results:
  • The authors described the latent period of mesothelioma as up to 14 years in children and 20-55 years in adults
  • Childhood cases in Table 1 included pleural, peritoneal and pericardial mesothelioma
  • In adult cases whose asbestos exposure was traced to infancy or early childhood, the latent period was similar to that seen after occupational exposure
  • The authors suggested that exposure in the children took place during foetal life, citing the short latent period, the adult cases, and an animal experiment by other researchers in which asbestos fibres were found in foetuses after intravenous injection of asbestos dust into the mothers
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that transplacental transfer of asbestos fibres and the physiology of the immune system during intrauterine life and infancy may explain some of the differences between mesotheliomas in children and in adults

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma, Pericardial, Occupational Exposure.

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