ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1590802
This article is part of the Research TopicMineral Particles and Fibers and Human Health Risks: State-of-the-Art in Characterization, Analysis, Tissue Analytics, Exposure Thresholds for Risk, Epidemiology, and Risk Assessment for Science-Based Regulation and Disease Prevention and Implications for Occupational Health and SafetyView all 15 articles
An Expanded Comparative Analysis of asbestos body and fiber content between formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded lung tissue
Provisionally accepted
- 1Silag - Swiss laboratory for particle analysis in tissues, Zurich, Switzerland
- 2Institute of Pathology, Stadtspital Triemli, Zurich, Switzerland
- 3Gradient, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- 4Department of Cellular Pathology and School of Medicine Cardiff University, University Hospital of Wales, Heath Park Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
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Introduction: Asbestos body and fiber burden in lung tissue may be determined using different specimens which may be formalin-fixed or paraffin embedded. Sample preparation is different: paraffin embedded tissue requires more complex steps than formalin-fixed tissue. A previous study highlighted potential variations in the measurement of retained mineral fibers in lung and prompted this expanded analysis. Additional data from claimed exposed subjects referred to a Swiss laboratory were compared with the results of mineral analysis obtained from a laboratory based in United Kingdom.Methods: Numbers of asbestos bodies were determined in formalin-fixed tissue and corresponding paraffin blocks of 62 subjects in Zurich by NaOCl digestion. Fiber burden was measured in a total of 104 subjects (62 subjects in Zurich and 42 subjects in Cardiff).Results: Asbestos body and amphibole asbestos fiber counts in paraffin blocks were noted to be, in general, lower than counts obtained from formalin-fixed tissue. The limits of detection for an analysis were noted to be higher in paraffin blocks than in formalin-fixed tissue, leading to more unusable results in paraffin block analysis. Similar trends were obtained in the two laboratories, although there were some differences in specimens -in Zurich, materials were typically from resections, whereas in the UK laboratory, controls and cases were established with post-mortem materials and had multiple wider 'pooled' sampling.Discussion: This comparative analysis highlights the potential significance of varied counts generated utilizing different samples on the etiologic conclusions and provides an approach and discussion to minimize the significance of any potential differences
Keywords: Asbestos bodies, amphibole asbestos fibers, formalin-fixed lung tissue, paraffinembedded tissue, Paraffin block
Received: 10 Mar 2025; Accepted: 28 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kuhn, Vrugt, Low, Goodman and Attanoos. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Barbara K. Kuhn, Silag - Swiss laboratory for particle analysis in tissues, Zurich, Switzerland
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