ABSTRACT
Early studies of asbestos workers in asbestos textile manufacturing noted the association between lung cancer and asbestosis, but it took many years before scientists concluded that asbestosis caused lung cancer. It was around 1940 that the German government mandated that soldiers and others stop smoking because they felt there were adequate data to prove an association between lung cancer and cigarette smoking. The distribution of histologic cell types of lung cancer related to asbestos exposure appears to be the same histologically as lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking, radiation, or chemical carcinogens. The dose required for the production of an asbestos-related lung cancer must be high enough to produce asbestosis since asbestos-related lung cancers are not seen in most clinical studies unless there is coexistent asbestosis. The risk of lung cancer associated with chrysotile exposure compared with amphibole asbestos is highly contested.
