Mineral dusts in lungs with scar or scar cancer.

Five lungs with small scars and five lungs with small scar associated cancers, were studied by light and scanning electron microscopy and x-ray energy dispersive spectrometry. Six hundred particles were photographed and their physical and chemical properties analyzed from scar, cancer, or normal alveolar tissue on carbon planchet-mounted, deparaffinized and low temperature-ashed sections. Amosite/crocidolite fibers were accumulated only in one cancerous lung. All other lungs shared similar types of mineral particles. The lungs with noncancer scars, however, showed an increase in the ratio of aluminum and calcium salts (non-silicates), while the lungs with scar cancers had a higher ratio of silicates. These patterns of particle distribution were similar in different areas of the same lung, despite the fact mechanism is unclear, these results are consistent with the possibility that the pattern of mineral particle distribution in a lung may influence the formation of cancer in a scar.