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Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on March 9, 2007
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2007 51(3):261-268; doi:10.1093/annhyg/mem003
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Occupational Hygiene Society

A Case Control Study of Lung Cancer and Exposure to Chrysotile and Amphibole at a Slovenian Asbestos-Cement Plant

M. DODIC FIKFAK1,*, D. KRIEBEL2, M. M. QUINN2, E. A. EISEN3 and D. H. WEGMAN4

1 Clinical Institute of Occupational Medicine, University Medical Centre 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
2 Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell, MA, USA
3 Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health Boston, MA, USA
4 School of Health and Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell, MA, USA

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1-386-52-21; fax +1-386-522-24-78; e-mail: metoda.dodic-fikfak{at}guest.arnes.si

A lung cancer case-control study was conducted in a Slovenian asbestos-cement factory for which unusually good records of asbestos exposures were available. The cohort consisted of all 6714 workers employed at the Salonit Anhovo factory after 31 December 1946 who worked there for at least one day between 1964 and 1994. Fifty-eight histologically confirmed cases of primary lung cancer and 290 controls were selected from the cohort. Working life exposure histories to amphibole and chrysotile forms of asbestos were estimated separately. Airborne asbestos concentrations were low. For example, the arithmetic mean exposure to all forms of asbestos in the highest exposure period (1947–1971) was 1.2 f/cm3. Chrysotile asbestos made up about 90% of this exposure (mean 1.1 f/cm3), whereas amphibole accounted for 10% (0.1 f/cm3). Comparing those above and below the 90 percentile of cumulative exposure, the odds ratios for all asbestos, chrysotile and amphibole were 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0, respectively, but confidence intervals were wide. There are only a few asbestos-lung cancer studies with high-quality exposure data and exposures in this low range. Though imprecise, the findings are important to the ongoing debate about asbestos risks.

Keywords: amphiboles • amphibole theory • asbestos • chrysotile • lung cancer


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