Distribution of asbestos lung burdens (million fibres longer than 5 µm per dry gram) in men and women
| TEM asbestos lung burden in million fibres per dry gram (Average lung burden for lung cancers in brackets)* | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Source of sample | 0− (0.0092) | 0.025− (0.0364) | 0.05− (0.0854) | 0.2− (0.2930) | 0.5− (0.7690) | ≥1.0 (2.0829) | Total |
| Males | |||||||
| Mesothelioma | 18 (16.8%) | 8 (7.5%) | 33 (30.8%) | 21 (19.6%) | 15 (14.0%) | 12 (11.2%) | 107 (100%) |
| Lung cancer | 105 (57.7%) | 22 (12.1%) | 41 (22.5%) | 8 (4.4%) | 4 (2.2%) | 2 (1.1%) | 182 (100%) |
| OR (95% CI) | 1.00 (ref) | 2.12 (0.82 to 5.49) | 4.70 (2.38 to 9.25) | 15.31 (5.89 to 39.8) | 21.88 (6.52 to 73.4) | 35.00 (7.22 to 169.6) | |
| Females | |||||||
| Mesothelioma | 13 (50.0%) | 2 (7.7%) | 7 (26.9%) | 4 (15.4%) | 26 (100%) | ||
| Lung cancer | 62 (77.5%) | 11 (13.8%) | 6 (7.5%) | 1 (1.3%) | 80 (100%) | ||
| OR (95% CI) | 1.00 (ref) | 0.87 (0.17 to 4.39) | 6.36 (1.89 to 21.44) | 19.08 (1.97 to 184.91) | |||
| Both sexes† | |||||||
| Mesothelioma | 26 | 8 | 38 | 23 | 15 | 12 | 122 |
| Lung cancer | 167 | 33 | 47 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 262 |
| Adjusted OR (95% CI) | 1.00 (ref) | 1.51 (0.62 to 3.65) | 4.81 (2.61,8.85) | 13.91 (5.69 to 34.0) | 21.52 (6.45 to 71.7) | 30.70 (6.38 to 147.7) | |
†Data for both sexes combined exclude 11 female mesothelioma cases born 1925–1939: 5 (TEM <0.025), 2 (TEM 0.025-), 2 (TEM 0.05-), 2 (TEM 0.2-). ORs for both sexes combined are adjusted for sex and year of birth (1940–1944, 1945–1949, 1950–1954).
*Mean lung burden of lung cancer samples in each category except the highest (≥1 mf/g). One lung cancer with 22.0 mf/g was recoded as 2.08 mf/g, the mean for the other lung cancer and the 12 mesotheliomas ≥1 mf/g. The mean for samples ≥1 mf/g was also set as 2.08 mf/g. Retaining the original value has little effect on the fitted model but distorts the lung burdens shown in table 3.
TEM, transmission electron microscopy.