Mass and number of fibres in the pathogenesis of asbestos-related lung disease in rats

Abstract

Five groups of rats were treated by inhalation for 12 months, with the U.I.C.C. preparations of the 3 main commercially used asbestos types, chrysotile, crocidolite and amosite. The experiment was designed so that the effects of both fibre mass and fibre number could be examined. The results indicated that chrysotile dust caused far more lung fibrosis than either amphibole type even when the fibre numbers in the dust clouds were similar. All malignant pulmonary neoplasms found during this study occurred in animals treated with chrysotile. The fibre-number calculations used for the generation of dust clouds were evaluated using the parameters recommended by the Health and Safety Executive in 1976, by which all fibres over 5 microgram long are counted using a phase-contrast light microscopy. When fibre-length distributions were calculated using a scanning electron microscope, however, it was found that the chrysotile clouds used in this study contained many more fibres over 20 microgram long than either of the amphibole clouds. The results, therefore, support previous suggestions that long asbestos fibres are more dangerous than short. They also indicate that neither a single mass standard, nor the present fibre-number standards are satisfactory.