Dear all,

Please find a newly published report in studying the mortality in Chinese Chrysotile asbestos workers, as conducted by Prof. Xiaorong Wang of the Division of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China. The study was funded by the Pneumoconiosis Compensation Funding Board, Hong Kong, China. We published the abstract of the report in the English version of Occupational Health, issue 155, the newsletter of the Hong Kong Workers¡¯ Health Centre.

Attached please find the info of newsletter as for your reference. You may also download the published report in the journal of Thorax, or the abstract of the report from the web page of Pneumoconiosis Compensation Funding Board in Hong Kong.

Best,
Karen
Hong Kong Workers¡¯ Health Centre

---

A 37-year observation of mortality in Chinese Chrysotile asbestos workers

Xiaorong Wang, Eiji Yano, Hong Qiu, Ignatius Yu, Midori N Courtice, L A Tse, Sihao Lin, Mianzhen Wang

doi: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2011-200169
Thorax 2012 67: 106-110 originally published online September 21, 2011

Key messages
1. What is the key question?
- What is the major cause-specific mortality in the cohort of workers who were exposed to chrysotile asbestos, and how strong are the associations between the cause-specific mortality and asbestos exposure?

2. What is the bottom line?
- This 37-year prospective cohort study observed significantly greater mortality of all causes, and all cancers in the asbestos workers, in comparison with the controls. However, the strongest association with asbestos exposure was seen in lung cancer and non-malignant respiratory disease, which showed a clear exposure response trend.

3. Why read on?
- Chrysotile asbestos continues to be mined and used heavily in China, largely because a controversy remains on carcinogenic potency of chrysotile asbestos. This prospective cohort study with the longest observation time to date, and high follow-up rate delivers a strong message that exposure to chrysotile asbestos can cause substantially high mortality risk for lung cancer as well as non-malignant respiratory disease.


http://www.pcfb.org.hk/research/pdf/Reportprofwangabs.pdf