Question by mdGreg C: Is the Incidence of Mesothelioma Similar Between Asbestosis and Silicosis?
Thanks K, I wasn’t Sure Where to Go.
Anreuro, I Heard this Long Ago, With the Burning of Rice Fields in Central Ca., I Heard that Problem was Ultimately Found to Be From the Release of Silicon, Oxidized Forms, Into the Atmosphere, Not Bagasosis (Sp?).
Best answer:
Answer by Kynysca
Hopefully, Spreedog answers this Q 
. Maybe he (or, someone else) will have a much better answer. But, I’ll give this a shot…
I found a 1997, where cohorts of asbestos sprayers and silicosis patients were tracked for incidence of cancer. Total cancer, lung cancer, and mesothelioma were dependent/criterion variables (<-not familiar with the statistics utilized), from what I saw. I realize this research is a little dated. There is no control group, but just looks like a report on incidence, but, still, not very much control to attribute results to isolated effects. Anyway, from what I read, standardized incidence ratios indicated that asbestos sprayers had a significantly higher incidence in the development of mesothelioma. Silicosis patients only had significantly higher incidence ratios for all sites (i.e., total cancer risk). Check out the abstract for yourself:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9131223?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Interesting little bits to do with silicosis and asbestos-related diseases. More recent, but not quite relevant to your Q: Apparently, silicosis and asbestos-related diseases not only differ in their causative materials (obviously, really), but also in terms of complications; autoimmune disorders being common in silicosis and tumors in asbestos-related diseases. Asbestos-related disease patients also show restricted overpresentation of TcR-Vbeta without clonal expansion, whereas silicosis patients reveal significant overpresentation of TcR-Vbeta 7.2. Basically, it may be concluded, here, that there are superantigenic effects associated with asbestos and dysregulation of autoimmunity-inducing effects of silica. I include these aforementioned bits, for the sake of interest, really, but perhaps you may glean something related to your reasoning/background to do with asking the Q. Here is the relevant abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17166401?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
EDIT: Below, scroll down to the graph entitled, "CDC asbestosis vs silicosis deaths" associated with "Attachment 1". It's not a very clear graph. Pesky. But, on quick skim, it looks like a comparison of those with either asbestosis or silicosis who expired due to malignant mesothelioma, from 1980 thru 2002. Looks like, asbestosis on the rise and a bigger killer (?):
http://www.actuary.org/pdf/casualty/asbestos_feb06.pdf
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Asbestosis | admin July 22, 2011 | 
Comments (8) 
