FLY-ASH LUNG - A NEW PNEUMOCONIOSIS

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Abstract
A laborer who worked in a steel mill and in a shipyard developed a nonspecific pulmonary interstitial fibrosis. Postmortem samples of his lung were digested and the inorganic material was extracted and examined using transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction and electron microprobe analysis. Uncoated asbestos fibers were present (1.4 .times. 105/g wet lung) as well as a large number of fly ash particles (6 .times. 106/g wet lung). Fly ash, the particulate material produced during coal combustion, had not previously been reported to be present in human lung tissue. Although the contribution of asbestos to this man''s lung disease was uncertain, based on previous studies implicating aluminum silicates in pneumoconiosis, fly ash, an aluminum silicate, may have been a contributing factor.