title: Numbers of asbestos bodies in urban patients with lung cancer and gastrointestinal cancer and in matched controls.
abstract: We compared the numbers of asbestos bodies extracted from the lungs of 103 patients with lung cancer and 50 patients with gastrointestinal malignant neoplasms to the numbers of bodies extracted from lungs of control patients matched for age, sex, smoking habits, and, in some cases, occupation. All patients were urban dwellers over the age of 40 years, and none was a primary asbestos worker. No differences in the counts of asbestos bodies were observed between the tested and control populations. The numbers of asbestos bodies did correlate well with occupation; the highest counts were found in male manual laborers. We conclude that in the urban population studied herein, the numbers of asbestos bodies alone do not correlate with the presence of pulmonary or gastrointestinal carcinoma; however, uncoated asbestos fibers are also known to be present in the lung, and the possibility that such tumors may be related to the numbers of these fibers in lungs remains to be explored.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001194:Asbestos / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001195:Asbestosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002641:Chicago; D005260:Female; D005770:Gastrointestinal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009790:Occupations; D014505:Urban Population
chemical_list: D001194:Asbestos