[Health surveillance of subjects formerly exposed to asbestos in Puglia]

The massive use of asbestos affected several industrial areas of Apulian region in the last decade. It has been estimated that in our country there are thousands of asbestos exposed workers and about 10.000 of them received CONTARP-INAIL document attesting their asbestos exposure for over ten years ex D.L. 257/92. Owing to the lack of any regional rules and guidelines on the medical surveillance of asbestos ex-exposed people, since 1994 our operative hospital unit has activated a sanitary protocol in order to satisfy growing requests of assistance and emergent controls for this part of people. During a 12 year activity 629 asbestos ex-exposed workers have been examined. 21% of these workers had two checks, thanks to these the recognition of 22 new tumoral and non-tumoral asbestos-correlated pathologies has been possible. This experience makes it clear that the activation of new procedures for early diagnoses of some asbestos-correlated pathologies is necessary, in fact more proposals for a redevelopment of sanitary assistance in the regional field are suggested.