Pulmonary Retention of of Ceramic Fibers in Silicon Carbide (SiC) Workers

The fibrous inorganic content of post-mortem lung material obtained from 15 men who worked in the primary silicon carbide (SiC) industry was evaluated. Five men had neither lung fibrosis nor lung cancer (NFNC), six had lung fibrosis (LF), and four had lung fibrosis and lung cancer (LFLC). The workers had 23 to 32 years of exposure. Mean duration of exposure was 23.4 (SD 6.9) years in the NFNC group, 28.8 (SD 5.5) in the LF, and 32.3 (SD 9.0) in the LFLC group. Concentrations of SiC ceramic fibers and other fibrous minerals and angular particles were determined by transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy. The geometric mean and geometric standard deviation lung concentrations of SiC ceramic fibers 0.1). Pulmonary retention of SiC fibers ≥ 5 µ showed an excess in LF and LFLC cases combined versus NFNC that approached statistical significance (Mann-Whitney, p=0.06). There was a somewhat greater difference ...