Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition No.3, 2017

Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition | 3/2017 WORLD NEWS 5 Dental technicians could be at higher risk of mesothelioma Dental technicians who worked with asbestos in the past may have inhaled microscopic ﬁ- bres of the carcinogenic material, and this could trigger the develop- ment of mesothelioma in later years. The study, titled “Pleural ma- lignant mesothelioma in dental laboratory technicians: A case series”, was published ahead of print on 13 April 2017 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. AD the Milan hospital. The men de- scribed the use of asbestos as a lin- ing material for casting rings, while the woman was not able to conﬁrm the use. By DTI MILAN, Italy: Dental technicians could be at an increased risk of de- veloping asbestos-related cancer, Italian researchers have suggested. According to their study results, past exposure to materials for- merly used in the manufacture of dental prostheses could trigger the much-later development of Now proven to be carcinogenic, asbes- tos used to be a common part of some dental production processes in the 1960s and 1970s. malignant mesothelioma, a type of cancer that most often affects the pulmonary pleurae and less commonly the peritoneum. Asbestos, a proven cause of cancer, was a widely used material in construction products, espe- cially in the 1960s and 1970s. In dentistry, it was used as a binder in periodontal dressings and as lin- ing material for casting rings and crucibles. The Italian researchers, ex- perts in environmental science and occupational health, con- ducted an analysis of more than 5,000 pleural mesothelioma pa- tients between 2000 and 2014. They found four subjects whose only exposure to asbestos had been in their work as dental tech- nicians. “Three men had been working as dental laboratory technicians, with asbestos exposure for 10, 34, and 4 years, and one woman had been helping her husband for 30 years in manufacturing dental prostheses,” wrote the study au- thors, among them Dr Carolina Mensi, from the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Fon- dazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda of the Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, a scientiﬁc institute for research, hospitalisation and health care at

Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition No.3, 2017

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