Risk assessment for Asbestos and Management of Low Levels Introduction:Medical Effects of Asbestos There are a number of medical effects of asbestos with different locations

There are a number of medical effects of asbestos with different locations (see figure 1) which will be discussed in more detail below. (1) Benign conditions of the pleura, and in particular pleural plaques. (2) Asbestosis. Observed as early as 1906 by Auribault it was defined as fibrosis of the lung caused by asbestos dust, and first called asbestos silicosis. It was only defined as a separate disease after use of X rays became usual. According to Doll and Peto (1982) the disease is indistinguishable from a rare "cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis", although asbestosis is usually assumed if there has been evidence of exposure, simply from a weighing of probabilities. There is in the literature some confusion as to what is to be called asbestosis. Most reserve the term for interstitial fibrosis; others have separated pathological reactions in the respiratory bronchioles and alveolar ducts, and called them small airways disease. This distinction is useful, because the small airways disease can be caused by a wide variety of nonasbestos minerals, silica etc., which do not cause interstitial fibrosis, or at least not frequently. (Churg 1983)