Asbestos exposure and asbestosis mortality in Italian cement-asbestos cohorts: Dose-response relationship and the role of competing death causes.

Objectives: In Italy, asbestos was used intensively until its ban in 1992, which was extended for asbestos cement factories until 1994. The aim of this study was to evaluate the dose-response between asbestos exposure and asbestosis mortality across a pool of Italian occupational cohorts, taking into account the presence of competing risks.

Methods: Cohorts were followed for vital status and the cause of death was ascertained by a linkage with mortality registers.

Rate advancement measurement for lung cancer and pleural mesothelioma in asbestos-exposed workers.

Introduction: Exposure to asbestos increases the risk of lung cancer and mesothelioma. Few studies quantified the premature occurrence of these diseases in asbestos-exposed workers. Focus on premature disease onset (rate advancement or acceleration) can be useful in risk communication and for the evaluation of exposure impact.

Pleural mesothelioma risk by industry and occupation: results from the Multicentre Italian Study on the Etiology of Mesothelioma (MISEM).

Background: The Italian mesothelioma registry (ReNaM) estimates mesothelioma incidence and addresses its etiology by assessing cases' exposures but cannot provide relative risk estimates.

Objectives: i) To estimate pleural mesothelioma relative risk by industry and occupation and by ReNaM categories of asbestos exposure; and ii) to provide quantitative estimates of the exposure-response relationship.

Methods: A population-based mesothelioma case-control study was conducted in 2012-2014 in five Italian regions.

[Effects of Asbestos on Human Health. Document of the Italian Epidemiological Association (AIE)].

Objectives: the Italian Epidemiological Association (AIE) intends to formulate assessments and recommendations on the most relevant and critical aspects in the preparation, conduct, and interpretation of epidemiological investigations on the health effects of exposure to asbestos and asbestos-like fibres.

Design, Setting, And Participants: the document was prepared by a working group of AIE associates, with a broad curriculum of epidemiological investigations, starting from the evaluation of scientific evidence, and was subsequently evaluated by the AIE governing body.

Results: the topics covered included: • consumption and presence of asbestos; • association between asbestos exposure and disease; • epidemiological surveillance of asbestos related diseases in Italy; • risk function for asbestos related diseases; • increased risk and anticipation of the disease; • interaction between asbestos and other carcinogens; • diagnosis in epidemiological studies; • assessment of exposure to asbestos; • epidemiological evidence on asbestos related diseases.

Italian pool of asbestos workers cohorts: asbestos related mortality by industrial sector and cumulative exposure.

Objective: Italy has been a large user of asbestos and asbestos containing materials until the 1992 ban. We present a pooled cohort study on long-term mortality in exposed workers.

Methods: Pool of 43 Italian asbestos cohorts (asbestos cement, rolling stock, shipbuilding, glasswork, harbors, insulation and other industries).

Treatment patterns among patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma: An Italian, population-based nationwide study.

Background: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare cancer with a poor prognosis. Centralization of rare cancer in dedicated centers is recommended to ensure expertise, multidisciplinarity and access to innovation. In Italy, expert centers for MPM have not been identified in all regions.

Factors Affecting Asbestosis Mortality Among Asbestos-Cement Workers in Italy.

Objectives: This study was performed with the aim of investigating the temporal patterns and determinants associated with mortality from asbestosis among 21 cohorts of Asbestos-Cement (AC) workers who were heavily exposed to asbestos fibres.

Methods: Mortality for asbestosis was analysed for a cohort of 13 076 Italian AC workers (18.1% women).

The Wittenoom legacy.

The Wittenoom crocidolite (blue asbestos) mine and mill ceased operating in 1966. The impact of this industry on asbestos-related disease in Western Australia has been immense. Use of the employment records of the Australian Blue Asbestos Company and records of the Wittenoom township residents has permitted two cohorts of people with virtually exclusive exposure to crocidolite to be assembled and studied.

A mortality study on male subjects exposed to polyfluoroalkyl acids with high internal dose of perfluorooctanoic acid.

Objectives: The aim of the present study was to examine the association between exposure to polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) and mortality (1970-2018) in a cohort of 462 male employees who had worked at least six months before 2009 for a factory (14,658 person-years; 107 deaths, average follow-up time 31.7 years), which had been producing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctanesulfonyl fluoride (PFOS) and other chemicals since 1968.

Methods: Employees were classified as follows: 1) by probability of exposure to PFASs; 2) by tertiles of PFOA serum concentrations.

Role of asbestos clearance in explaining long-term risk of pleural and peritoneal cancer: a pooled analysis of cohort studies.

Objectives: Models based on the multistage theory of cancer predict that rates of malignant mesothelioma continuously increase with time since first exposure (TSFE) to asbestos, even after the end of external exposure. However, recent epidemiological studies suggest that mesothelioma rates level off many years after first exposure to asbestos. A gradual clearance of asbestos from the lungs has been suggested as a possible explanation for this phenomenon.

Cumulative asbestos exposure and mortality from asbestos related diseases in a pooled analysis of 21 asbestos cement cohorts in Italy.

Background: Despite the available information on cancer risk, asbestos is used in large areas in the world, mostly in the production of asbestos cement. Moreover, questions are raised regarding the shape of the dose response relation, the relation with time since exposure and the association with neoplasms in various organs. We conducted a study on the relationship between cumulative asbestos exposure and mortality from asbestos related diseases in a large Italian pool of 21 cohorts of asbestos-cement workers with protracted exposure to both chrysotile and amphibole asbestos.

The epidemiology of malignant mesothelioma in women: gender differences and modalities of asbestos exposure.

Introduction: The epidemiology of gender differences for mesothelioma incidence has been rarely discussed in national case lists. In Italy an epidemiological surveillance system (ReNaM) is working by the means of a national register.

Methods: Incident malignant mesothelioma (MM) cases in the period 1993 to 2012 were retrieved from ReNaM.

Italian pool of asbestos workers cohorts: mortality trends of asbestos-related neoplasms after long time since first exposure.

Objective: Asbestos is a known human carcinogen, with evidence for malignant mesothelioma (MM), cancers of lung, ovary, larynx and possibly other organs. MM rates are predicted to increase with a power of time since first exposure (TSFE), but the possible long-term attenuation of the trend is debated. The asbestos ban enforced in Italy in 1992 gives an opportunity to measure long-term cancer risk in formerly exposed workers.

Migration and work in postwar Australia: mortality profile comparisons between Australian and Italian workers exposed to blue asbestos at Wittenoom.

Objectives: Three hundred and thirty thousand Italians arrived in Australia between 1945 and 1966, many on assisted passage schemes where the worker agreed to a 2-year unskilled employment contract. Italians were the largest of 52 migrant groups employed at the Wittenoom blue asbestos mining and milling operation. We compare mortality from asbestos-related diseases among Italian and Australian workers employed at Wittenoom.

Residual fibre lung burden among patients with pleural mesothelioma who have been occupationally exposed to asbestos.

Objectives: To evaluate the lungs asbestos fibres concentration in participants with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) who have been occupationally exposed.

Methods: The lung samples were obtained from pleuropneumonectomies or autopsies of 271 male MPMs. The lung samples were examined through scanning electron microscopy.

[Time trend in mesothelioma and lung cancer risk in asbestos workers in Italy].

This study aims at investigating, in asbestos exposed workers, the time trend of their risk of mesothelioma and of other neoplasm after very long latency and after the cessation of asbestos exposure. We pooled a large number of Italian cohorts of asbestos workers and updated mortality follow-up. The pool of data for statistical analyses includes 51,988 workers, of which 6,058 women: 54.

[Increased risk of mesothelioma and lung cancer among workers exposed to asbestos who could require an anticipated retirement].

Objectives: to assess the association among malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) and lung cancer (LC) among workers who have been exposed to asbestos and have or not have required an anticipated leave from work, a possibility offered by the 1992 law banning asbestos in Italy, in the framework of the health surveillance programmes on going in the Veneto Region (Northern Italy).

Setting And Participants: a cohort of asbestos workers derived from the rosters of selected factories and alive in 1992, followed from 1992 to 2012.MPM cases have been identified through the Regional Mesothelioma Registry, while LC cases through a link with the Regional Cancer Registry, hospital discharges, and death certificates.

[Confirmation of an excess of cancer mortality in a cohort of workers of a chromium thin-layer plating].

Objectives: to extend up to year 2013 the follow-up for mortality of a cohort of workers in a chromium and nickel plating plant, where an excess of lung cancers was already identified.

Design: 10 years after the first study about cancer mortality in a cohort of workers involved in the chromium thin-layer plating, published in 2006, we updated the evaluation of themortality of a cohort ofworkers employed in the same chromiumthin-layer plating factory with at least 6 months of work between 1968 and 1994.The mortality rates are compared with those of the Italian and Veneto Region (Northern Italy) populations.

Malignant mesothelioma due to non-occupational asbestos exposure from the Italian national surveillance system (ReNaM): epidemiology and public health issues.

Introduction: Italy produced and imported a large amount of raw asbestos, up to the ban in 1992, with a peak in the period between 1976 and 1980 at about 160,000 tons/year. The National Register of Mesotheliomas (ReNaM, "Registro Nazionale dei Mesoteliomi" in Italian), a surveillance system of mesothelioma incidence, has been active since 2002, operating through a regional structure.

Methods: The Operating Regional Center (COR) actively researches cases and defines asbestos exposure on the basis of national guidelines.

Epidemiological patterns of asbestos exposure and spatial clusters of incident cases of malignant mesothelioma from the Italian national registry.

Background: Previous ecological spatial studies of malignant mesothelioma cases, mostly based on mortality data, lack reliable data on individual exposure to asbestos, thus failing to assess the contribution of different occupational and environmental sources in the determination of risk excess in specific areas. This study aims to identify territorial clusters of malignant mesothelioma through a Bayesian spatial analysis and to characterize them by the integrated use of asbestos exposure information retrieved from the Italian national mesothelioma registry (ReNaM).

Methods: In the period 1993 to 2008, 15,322 incident cases of all-site malignant mesothelioma were recorded and 11,852 occupational, residential and familial histories were obtained by individual interviews.

IARC monographs: 40 years of evaluating carcinogenic hazards to humans.

Background: Recently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Programme for the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans has been criticized for several of its evaluations, and also for the approach used to perform these evaluations. Some critics have claimed that failures of IARC Working Groups to recognize study weaknesses and biases of Working Group members have led to inappropriate classification of a number of agents as carcinogenic to humans.

Objectives: The authors of this Commentary are scientists from various disciplines relevant to the identification and hazard evaluation of human carcinogens.