Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38041166›Full record

ArticleJournal of translational medicine2023

A postmortem case control study of asbestos burden in lungs of malignant mesothelioma cases.

S D Visonà, B Bertoglio, C Favaron, S Capella, E Belluso, C Colosio, S Villani, T Ivic-Pavlicic, E Taioli

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of translational medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
1.8field-weighted citation impact, top 13% of its field
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Asbestos Disease Initiation.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2026
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Observational
  5. Review
  6. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.

S D VisonàDepartment of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, Unit of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy. silviadamiana.visona@unipv.it.ORCID 0000-0001-7947-7087
B BertoglioDepartment of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, Unit of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
C FavaronDepartment of Biology and Biotechnology "L. Spallanzani", University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
S CapellaDepartment of Earth Sciences, University of Torino, Turin, Italy.
E BellusoDepartment of Earth Sciences, University of Torino, Turin, Italy.
C ColosioDepartment of Health Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
S VillaniDepartment of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, Unit of Biostatistics and Clinical Epidemiology, Pavia University, Pavia, Italy.
T Ivic-PavlicicInstitute for Translational Epidemiology and Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
E TaioliInstitute for Translational Epidemiology and Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
University of Pavia · ITIcahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai · USUniversity of Turin · ITUniversity of Milan · IT

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundAsbestos lung content is regarded as the most reliable tool for causal attribution of malignant mesothelioma (MM) to previous asbestos exposures. However, there is a lack of studies on asbestos burden in lungs of MM patients in comparison with healthy individuals. This study aims to provide such a comparison, investigating, as well, differences in asbestos lung burden with sex and time trends.

methodsAsbestos lung content has been assessed on formalin-fixed lung fragments using scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersion spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) on individuals deceased from MM (cases) and healthy subjects without any lung disease who died from violent causes (controls) between 2005 and 2023.

resultsAsbestos and asbestos bodies (ABs) were found, respectively, in 73.7% and 43.2% of cases and in 28 and 22% of controls; in MM cases the most represented asbestos types were crocidolite and amosite, whereas in controls it was tremolite-actinolite asbestos. The concentration of both asbestos fibers and ABs was statistically significantly higher in MM cases compared to controls. The mean asbestos fibers width was also significantly higher in cases than controls. Males and females with MM showed similar asbestos and ABs concentrations, but females had higher concentrations of chrysotile, and significantly lower fibers width compared to males. Time trends show that MM lung asbestos concentrations decreased starting in 2011. DISCUSSION: The results suggest a correlation between asbestos burden in lungs and MM risk. The different concentration of chrysotile, as well as the different width of asbestos fibers in MM males and females might reflect a sex difference in response of the lung microenvironment to inhaled asbestos. Finally, this study provides the first pathological evidence of the effect of the ban of asbestos use, demonstrating a significant decrease of asbestos lung content after 2011.

Indexed as

AsbestosLung NeoplasmsMesotheliomaMesothelioma, MalignantAsbestos, AmphiboleAsbestos, SerpentineCase-Control StudiesFemaleHumansLungMaleTumor MicroenvironmentAsbestosAsbestos, AmphiboleAsbestos, SerpentinetremoliteAmphibolesAsbestosAutopsyChrysotileEpidemiologyMalignant mesotheliomaSEM–EDS

Identifiers

PMID38041166
PMCPMC10693031
OpenAlexW4389257880

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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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.