NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After asbestos exposure, men
are more likely than women to develop malignant mesothelioma,
according to an Australian study.

Mesothelioma, a lethal cancer of the lining of the lungs
and the chest cavity, is caused mainly by exposure to asbestos.

Alison Reid told Reuters Health that she and her colleagues
are studying people exposed to asbestos at Wittenoom in Western
Australia. “This was an asbestos mining and milling town that
closed in 1966, but still provides us with a legacy of
asbestos-related diseases.”

In the medical journal Chest, Ms. Reid, at the University
of Western Australia, Crawley, and her associates report
findings from follow-up through the end of 2000 among more than
4700 former residents of Wittenoom. These subjects were not
employed in the milling and mining industry but were
nonetheless exposed to the mineral.

Deaths rates from mesothelioma were higher with increasing
length of residence, and were consistently lower for women than
for men.

Men had more than four times the rate of mesothelioma as
women, after accounting for cumulative asbestos exposure and
age at first residence.

People who were at least 15 years old when they were first
exposed to the asbestos-laden environment were 2.4-times more
likely to die of mesothelioma than those who were younger than
15 years at first exposure, the researchers note.

“The asbestos epidemic is almost past its peak in the
developed world,” Ms Reid pointed out, “but elsewhere it will
just be starting. It is still being used in many developing
countries — where they have little or no regulation about its
use, worker protection, or means of treatment.”

SOURCE: Chest, February 2007.