Link between asbestos exposure and cancer

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recently reaffirmed that there is sufficient evidence for asbestos to be classified as a known human carcinogen (i.e. Group 1). All commercial forms of asbestos, including chrysotile (white asbestos), cause lung cancer and mesothelioma. The IARC also concluded that there is “sufficient” evidence that asbestos causes laryngeal cancer and, perhaps surprisingly, ovarian cancer. They also found that there was “limited” evidence that asbestos exposure causes cancers of the pharynx, stomach and gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, with the evidence for an association between asbestos exposure and GI cancer being the strongest.

Mesothelioma usually develops between 20 and 50 years after exposure to asbestos first took place. This explains why the occurrence of the disease has been steadily rising in Britain over the last 20 years (the current annual total has now reached more than 2,000 deaths), since the peak use of amosite and crocidolite in Britain occurred during and after the last World War. According to Andrew Darnton and his colleagues at the Health and Safety Executive [1] , asbestos-related lung cancer probably causes 2–3% of all lung cancer deaths in males in Britain, approximately one asbestos-related lung cancer death for each mesothelioma that is diagnosed.

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[1] Darnton AJ, McElvenny DM, Hodgson JT. (2006) Estimating the number of asbestos-related lung cancer deaths in Great Britain from 1980 to 2000. Ann Occup Hyg;50(1): 29-38. Available at…
http://annhyg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/50/1/29