Skip to main content
NCBI home page
British Journal of Industrial Medicine logoLink to British Journal of Industrial Medicine
. 1985 Jun;42(6):389–396. doi: 10.1136/oem.42.6.389

Relations between asbestos exposure and lung cancer SMRs in occupational cohort studies.

F D Liddell, J A Hanley
PMCID: PMC1007496  PMID: 4005191

Abstract

It has long been accepted that excessive exposure to asbestos may produce lung cancer but not that there is a consistent "biological gradient." This can only be evaluated reliably in studies where, for every individual, exposure has been measured in terms of both duration and intensity. Even now, there are only at most eight such cohort studies of asbestos workers, while femoral methods of analysis have been available only recently. These methods, applied in these studies, yield good evidence that the "exposure-response" relation between accumulated exposure to asbestos and standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) for lung cancer may be taken as linear, but that at zero exposure the lung cancer SMR is not always unity--not surprising, because of well known difficulties with the choice of reference population and selection problems. This leads to a concept of "relative slopes" that take account of the background mortality in the cohort and make what appears to be the best use of the available data. Other approaches to the same data, and indeed to all cohort data known, are also considered. Each study is examined as closely as is possible in a short review, and the concepts of linearity and relative slopes appear justified. The relative slopes (b/a) in the line SMR = a[1 + (b/a) . (exposure)] vary much more widely than can be accounted for by differences in epidemiological methodology; as discussed elsewhere, reasons for the variation seem to lie rather in type and dimensions of asbestos fibre, industrial process, etc. Slopes in the line SMR = 1 + b1 . (exposure) vary about twice as much as do the relative slopes.

Full text

PDF
389

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Acheson E. D., Gardner M. J. Asbestos: scientific basis for environmental control of fibres. IARC Sci Publ. 1980;(30):737–754. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Berry G. Dose-response in case-control studies. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1980 Sep;34(3):217–222. doi: 10.1136/jech.34.3.217. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Berry G., Newhouse M. L. Mortality of workers manufacturing friction materials using asbestos. Br J Ind Med. 1983 Feb;40(1):1–7. doi: 10.1136/oem.40.1.1. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Berry G. The analysis of mortality by the subject-years method. Biometrics. 1983 Mar;39(1):173–184. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Dement J. M., Harris R. L., Jr, Symons M. J., Shy C. Estimates of dose-response for respiratory cancer among chrysotile asbestos textile workers. Ann Occup Hyg. 1982;26(1-4):869–887. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Enterline P., DeCoufle P., Henderson V. Mortality in relation to occupational exposure in the asbestos industry. J Occup Med. 1972 Dec;14(12):897–903. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Finkelstein M. M. Mortality among employees of an Ontario asbestos-cement factory. Am Rev Respir Dis. 1984 May;129(5):754–761. doi: 10.1164/arrd.1984.129.5.754. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Henderson V. L., Enterline P. E. Asbestos exposure: factors associated with excess cancer and respiratory disease mortality. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1979;330:117–126. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1979.tb18712.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Liddell F. D. Simple exact analysis of the standardised mortality ratio. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1984 Mar;38(1):85–88. doi: 10.1136/jech.38.1.85. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. McDonald A. D., Fry J. S., Woolley A. J., McDonald J. C. Dust exposure and mortality in an American chrysotile asbestos friction products plant. Br J Ind Med. 1984 May;41(2):151–157. doi: 10.1136/oem.41.2.151. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. McDonald A. D., Fry J. S., Woolley A. J., McDonald J. C. Dust exposure and mortality in an American factory using chrysotile, amosite, and crocidolite in mainly textile manufacture. Br J Ind Med. 1983 Nov;40(4):368–374. doi: 10.1136/oem.40.4.368. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. McDonald A. D., Fry J. S., Woolley A. J., McDonald J. Dust exposure and mortality in an American chrysotile textile plant. Br J Ind Med. 1983 Nov;40(4):361–367. doi: 10.1136/oem.40.4.361. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. McDonald J. C., Liddell F. D., Gibbs G. W., Eyssen G. E., McDonald A. D. Dust exposure and mortality in chrysotile mining, 1910-75. Br J Ind Med. 1980 Feb;37(1):11–24. doi: 10.1136/oem.37.1.11. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. McDonald J. C. Mineral fibres and cancer. Ann Acad Med Singapore. 1984 Apr;13(2 Suppl):345–352. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Newhouse M. L., Berry G. Patterns of mortality in asbestos factory workers in London. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1979;330:53–60. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1979.tb18709.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Nicholson W. J., Selikoff I. J., Seidman H., Lilis R., Formby P. Long-term mortality experience of chrysotile miners and millers in Thetford Mines, Quebec. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1979;330:11–21. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1979.tb18705.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Peto J. Lung cancer mortality in relation to measured dust levels in an asbestos textile factory. IARC Sci Publ. 1980;(30):829–836. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Peto J. The hygiene standard for chrysotile asbestos. Lancet. 1978 Mar 4;1(8062):484–489. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(78)90145-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Seidman H., Selikoff I. J., Hammond E. C. Short-term asbestos work exposure and long-term observation. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1979;330:61–89. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1979.tb18710.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Selikoff I. J., Hammond E. C., Seidman H. Mortality experience of insulation workers in the United States and Canada, 1943--1976. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1979;330:91–116. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1979.tb18711.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Weill H., Hughes J., Waggenspack C. Influence of dose and fiber type on respiratory malignancy risk in asbestos cement manufacturing. Am Rev Respir Dis. 1979 Aug;120(2):345–354. doi: 10.1164/arrd.1979.120.2.345. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from British Journal of Industrial Medicine are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES