Fibers and Fibrosis

Excerpt

Inhaled fibers as a cause of lung disease remains a lively and controversial topic. Histochemists and electron microscopists can now detect minute fibers in tissue—invisible with classical methods—but the pathological and clinical implications of such findings are by no means clear. A recent report on a lung biopsy from a patient who later died of respiratory failure (1) elicited much discussion (2). Tiny asbestos fibers were found in the biopsy material; there was "interstitial inflammation and fibrosis" (1). But was the amount of these fibers sufficient to explain the fibrosis? And it is hazardous to generalize from findings in a