Asbestos bodies in rat lung following intratracheal instillation of chrysotile

Asbestos bodies in rat lung have rarely been reported, and just one previous record of their formation from chrysotile fibres in the rat is known. This paper illustrates the production of numerous true asbestos bodies in the lungs of Lister hooded rats after a single small intratracheal dose of lightly milled chrysotile. The demonstration of these bodies is particularly useful because uncoated chrysotile fibres in lung tissue cannot normally be visualized by light microscopy; the detection of asbestos bodies, and therefore of asbestos fibres, provides a means of directly relating asbestos exposure to observed tissue lesions. The asbestos bodies detected in the present study were nearly always associated with small pulmonary fibrotic lesions. The bodies ranged in length from 5 to 80 micron and were up to 5 micron in diameter. Small spheres, rods and bodies the shape of a comma were common; larger beaded structures were somewhat rarer. The bodies were visible in tissue sections stained routinely with modified Azan stain and with haematoxylin and eosin, but their detection and localization was enhanced by the use of Perls' Prussian blue stain in association with a pale eosin counterstain.