Abstract
Background: Unindustrial asbestosis occurs very rarely. A distinctive feature of clinical-X-ray observations of 6 members of one family is that no one of them have ever worked at the factory excavating and processing asbest, but all of them for some time (from 6 till 12 years) lived in the place near the factory. The age of patients was from 29 till 57 years.
Methods: The observation was carried out during 7 years (from 2009 till 2015). To assess the dynamics of the disease and to exclude mesothelioma of pleura, multislice computed tomography (MSCT) was performed once a year.
Results: All the patients had poor clinical manifestations and in the roentgenograms taken at the preliminary stages of in-patient observation revealed changes were identified as pulmonary fibrosis. For the first time the asbestosis with massive pleural calcinosis was diagnosed in the members of this family by the data from MSCT. The use of special software gave an opportunity to identify coarse and extensive damages of pleura in the form of fibrosis and lamellate calcinosis, to assess the quantity of pathological changes of pleura and register topometrically the damage of front, back, lateral and diaphragm parts of it. There were no changes found in bronchial-parenchymal pulmonary structures under MSCT study. The picture stays stable at annual clinical-X-ray observations.
Conclusion: The typical feature of the present observation is that this type of asbestosis can be considered to be unindustrial (community-acquired) pneumonoconiosis. People living in the area near the factory have to be timely informed about the harm this mineral does to a person even outside the factory.
- Copyright ©the authors 2016
