《Entironmental Health Perspectives》.pdfVIP

Entironmental Health Perspectives Vol. 9, pp. 155-160, 1974 Microfiltration Method for Quantitative Study of Fibrous Particles in Biological Specimens by J. Bignon,T P. Sebastien,t M.C. Jaurand,t and B. Hem* Counting coated and uncoated inorganic fibers in sputum has been used to investigate the level ofenvironmental or occupational asbestos exposure and the concentration of fibrous dusts in human lung. Inorganic fibers ini sputum were counted by light microscopy after chemical digestion and microfiltration processing. The same method was used for processing gastric juice and lung tissue. There were no ferruginous bodies (FB)in sputum from 49 patients without any asbestos exposure. The study of sputum from 125 patoients with various asbestos exposure pointed out a high cor- relation between the number of FB in sputum and the level of asbestos exposure. These 125 patients were classified into three groups according to the type of their asbestos occupational hazard: group I, raw asbestos workers; group II, workers manufacturing asbestos products; group III, workers with mixed indlustrial dust exposure. For these three groups, the mean number of FB in sputum was 100, 10, and 1, respectively. The comparison of the FB content of sputum and lung parenchyma showed the absence of FB in sputum when the concentration of FB in lung parenchyma was under 1000/cm3 of lung parenchyma; above this concentration the number of FB in sputum was in good correlation with fiber concentration in lung parenchyma. A preliminary study with the use of gastric juice show-