ArticleCentral European journal of public health2022
Asbestos danger in central Europe is not yet over - the situation in the Czech Republic.
Article in Central European journal of public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Persistence of Asbestos-Containing Friction Materials in the Hungarian Waste Stream Twenty Years After the European Union Ban.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Exposure to insulating materials and risk of coronary artery diseases: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesIn the Czech Republic, asbestos has been classified as a known human carcinogen since 1984. The use of asbestos-containing products was limited to scenarios where the use of other materials was not possible. Since 1997, the manufacture of asbestos materials has been forbidden, and in 1999, the import, manufacture and distribution of all types of asbestos fibres was legally banned by Act No. 157/1998 Coll. Although the use of asbestos is forbidden, the risk of exposure still exists given the ongoing demolition and reconstruction of buildings in which asbestos has been used. In addition, a novel risk has arisen through the quarrying of asbestos-containing aggregates and their subsequent use. The aim of this paper was to describe and evaluate asbestos in terms of history, legislation, current risk of occupational exposure and its health consequences in the Czech Republic over the last three decades.
methodsThis retrospective descriptive study used the collected data on occupational exposure and occupational diseases. The counts of workers occupationally exposed to asbestos were obtained from the Registry of Work Categorization; the numbers and structure of occupational diseases caused by asbestos were taken from the Czech National Registry of Occupational Diseases. Data on the total number of mesothelioma cases recorded in the Czech National Cancer Registry was provided by the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic.
resultsA total of 13,112 subjects were registered as occupationally exposed to asbestos during the period 2001-2020. A total of 687 cases of asbestos-related occupational diseases were reported in the period 1991-2020 in the Czech Republic, comprising 178 cases of asbestosis, 250 cases of pleural hyalinosis, 168 cases of pleural or peritoneal mesothelioma, 90 cases of lung cancer, and one case of laryngeal cancer. The data from the Czech National Cancer Registry, available for a shorter period (1991-2018), reveal 1,389 cases of mesothelioma, of which only ~11% were recognised as occupational, despite the fact that the occupational causality of mesotheliomas is estimated to be up to 90% of mesotheliomas. Moreover, the latency of mesotheliomas since the last occupational exposure reached up to 50 years and this trend is still slightly increasing, unlike asbestosis, where a high cumulative dose of inhaled asbestos is needed. The real proportion of occupational lung cancers may obviously be even higher, especially in smokers, where occupational causes including asbestos are not suspected by most physicians.
conclusionCzech data on asbestos-related occupational diseases, especially cancers, are grossly underestimated, which is most apparent through the low proportion of mesotheliomas diagnosed as occupational. Asbestos materials in older buildings remained in situ and may represent a danger during reconstruction works. The current source of exposure appears to be quarrying of asbestos-containing aggregate and its subsequent use. Awareness of the professional community is therefore crucial, not only for the possibility of compensating those affected, but also for the early detection of the diseases through the dispensary of exposed persons.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.