[Endemic pleural plaques and environmental factors (author's transl)]

In an agricultural town in Burgenland (Austria) we found an increased prevalence of pleural plaques. These calcifying thickenings of the pleura are related to minimal asbestos exposure such as is mesothelioma, but they cannot be regarded as a precancerosis. The increased occurrence of pleural plaques in this town of nearly 3500 inhabitants (in which during 1916 to 1945 asbestos was mined) we first found at the chest x-ray archives of a pulmologic hospital, then by mass radiography and blind comparison with control groups. A photofluoroscopy of 300 persons yielded 16 cases with definite pleural plaques (5.3%) among which were 4 cases with suspected asbestosis and another 14 cases with uncertain pleural plaques (4.7%). The 600 control persons showed no such radiological changes. Interviews wich persons detected for pleural plaques at mass radiography gave no indication that they had occupational asbestos exposure. But asbestos was detected in the soil of vineyards and in the dust of the houses. Asbestos was also detectable in the atmospheric dust by x-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopic techniques.