Unusual Ferruginous Bodies

Our plain-English summary of Unusual Ferruginous Bodies, by P. Gross, J. Tuma, R.T.P. DeTreville (1971).

The study

• Authors: P. Gross, J. Tuma, R.T.P. DeTreville
• Published: Archives of Environmental Health, Volume 22. May 1971.
• 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 article described unusual forms of ferruginous bodies, which are inhaled dust particles coated with an iron-containing protein, found in human lungs. The authors examined preserved lung tissue from seven people autopsied in Pittsburgh hospitals and from three long-time employees of a fibrous glass factory. The tissue was dissolved chemically, and the bodies were concentrated and examined on slides. Many bodies had nonfibrous cores and were generally round or oval. Others had black, opaque, sometimes branching fibrous cores. One city dweller, a 57-year-old woman, had as many as 3,200 nonfibrous and 370 fibrous ferruginous bodies per gram of dry lung. The authors wrote that round bodies were fairly common in lung sediment from adult city dwellers and may outnumber the better-known elongated forms. They considered it probable that the nonfibrous cores came largely from fly ash and soot. They also judged that some black fibrous cores probably came from smoke of burning leaves, paper, wood or coal, after finding black fibers of similar size in the ash of burned leaves.

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: Descriptive laboratory study of the shapes of ferruginous bodies isolated from autopsy lung tissue. It gives no statistical comparison.
• Who was studied: Formalin-fixed lung tissue from seven people autopsied in Pittsburgh hospitals and from three long-time employees in a fibrous glass factory. The authors describe the people as presumably not occupationally exposed to asbestos dust.
• Exposure: Inhaled dust particles in general. The authors presumed the nonfibrous cores came from city air pollutants (fly ash, soot) and some black fibrous cores from smoke of burning plant material. No asbestos exposure was measured, and no fiber type was identified for the cores.
• Main results:
  • In one city dweller, a 57-year-old woman, the authors found as many as 3,200 nonfibrous ferruginous bodies per gram of dry lung, along with 370 fibrous ferruginous bodies per gram of dry lung.
  • Round ferruginous bodies were fairly common in lung sediment smears from adult city dwellers and may predominate over the elongated forms, although they are rarely recognized in routine lung sections.
  • Some bodies had black, opaque fibrous cores. The authors found black fibers of similar dimensions in the ash of leaves burned over a gas flame. They considered it reasonable that some such cores formed around fibers from the smoke of burning leaves.
  • In several lungs, hemosiderin (iron-containing material) was so abundant that it obscured any ferruginous bodies. Diluting the samples allowed the bodies to be identified.
  • The authors rejected the idea that the round bodies were cross-sections of elongated fibrous bodies. They reasoned that in smears, elongated structures would lie flat rather than end-on.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the formation of round ferruginous bodies from inhaled nonfibrous particles should have been expected. They also concluded that smoke from burning plant products such as leaves, paper, wood and coal may supply the black fibrous cores of some ferruginous bodies.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors state that many factors that cause differences in the shapes of ferruginous bodies are unknown.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Ferruginous body.

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