Dusts and fibres

Asbestos Inhalation of asbestos dust and fibres can cause asbestosis , a crippling and eventually fatal lung disease which often becomes lung cancer in its later stages. The industrial use of asbestos is strictly controlled in the UK by the Asbestos Regulations 1969.20... 

Gulumian M. 1999. The role of oxidative stress in diseases caused by mineral dusts and fibres Current status and future of prophylaxis and treatment. Mol Cell Biochem 196 69-77. 

Marczynski B, Kerenyi T, Marek W, et al. 1994c. Induction of DNA - damage after rats exposure to crocidolite asbestos libers. In Davis IMG, Jaurand MC, ed. Cellular and molecular effects of mineral and synthetic dusts and fibres. Berlin Springer-Verlag, 227-232. 

N., Freeman, C., Gahchet, L., and Cogliano, V., on behalf of the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer Monogr h Working Group (2009). A review of human carcinogens— part C metals, arsenic, dusts, and fibres. Lancet Oncol 10, 453 54. 

Dust- and fibre-induced release of lactate dehydrogenase from rat alveolar macrophages at a dose of 10 mg/ml by man-made vitreous fibres was less than by quartz, that by RCF 1 the least of all the fibres, even smaller than that induced by titanium dioxide (Luoto et al. 1997). MMVF 10 glasswool fibre... 

Filters are available for protection against harmful dusts and fibres, and also for removing gases and vapours. It is important that respirators are never used in oxygen-deficient atmospheres. 

The respiratory tract (nose, throat, windpipe, lungs) has a number of protective mechanisms against dust and fibre particles. Only a veiy small fraction of the dust and fibres we breathe actualfy remains in the lung permanently, otherwise lung function would be obstructed significantfy. 

Not all the dust and fibres which are breathed in stay in the limg. Finer particles are largely breathed out again, and the macrophages (clean-up cells) and a moving hair and mucus system (the mucociliary escalator in the lung vessels) carry out marty of the particles deposited. 

Dust and fibre samples must be carefully transported to the laboratory with the dust or fibre on top of the filter. You must include field blanks in the filters which go to the laboratory. 

During the course of work with museum artifacts, some contact with dusts and fibres is inevitable. Although these substances may be a nuisance, for the most part they will be non-toxic. Dusts of metal compounds may be encountered, and of these lead is by far the most important, as mentioned earlier. Increasing use is being made of glass fibre in museum work, whilst the hazards relating to the styrene which is evolved have also been mentioned previously. The glass fibres themselves are an irritant to the skin, and to the respiratory tract if they are inhaled, but almost certainly they have no other harmful effects. 

Donaldson K, Golyasnya N, Davis JMG. Long and short amosite asbestos samples comparison of their chromosome-damaging effects to cells in culture with the results of other in vitro and in vivo assays of toxicity. In Davis JMG, Jaurand MC, eds. Cellular and Molecular Effects of Minerals and Synthetic Dusts and Fibres. Berlin, Springer-Verlag, 1994 221-226. 

Jensen CG, Jensen LCW, Ault JG, Osorio G, Cole R, Rieder CL. Time-lapse video light microscopic and electron microscopic observations of vertebrate epithelial cells exposed to crocidolite asbestos. In Davis IMG, Jaurand MC, eds. Cellular and Molecular EIFects of Mineral and Synthetic Dusts and Fibres. Berlin Springer-Verlag, 1994 63-78. 

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