Document b5OZwYEkdMwrxjo7ZK89nE8Do
FILE NAME Talc TALC
DATE 2019 June
DOC TALC186 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Medical Journal Letter to the Editor -
Malignant Mesothelioma and Its Nonasbestos Causes
Localized Renal Masses
Comment on Recent
American Urological
Association Guideline
To the Editor Localized renal masses are increasingly being detected as incidental findings during imaging
studies and the clinician must decide
to excise ablate follow or perform limited tissue sampling for diagnosis A guideline on management of localized renal masses was published in 2009 by the American Urological Association AUA In 2014 the
AUA assembled a group of experts to
update the guideline focusing primarily on evaluating and managing clinically localized masses in adults suspicious for renal cell carcinoma.2 The expert panel that updated the guideline included members of the AUA and representatives from the College of American Pathologists CAP the Society of Urologic Oncology the American College of Radiology the American Society of Nephrology the Endourological Society and the Society of Interventional Radiology.
In March 2017 the AUA requested
the CAP's formal endorsement of the
updated guideline The CAP appointed a small group of pathologists the Endorsement Review Panel to review
the AUA recommendations and pro-
vide their opinion to the CAP Council
on Scientific Affairs and Board of
Governors After review and discus-
sion the CAP endorsed the AUA
guideline with one comment concerning the method of solid renal mass sampling Item 13 in the guideline states that for patients with solid renal masses who elect renal mass biopsy multiple core biopsies are preferred over needle aspiration FNA italics added We originally submit-
ted our endorsement comment to the
AUA Practice Guidelines Committee
and to the Journal of Urology but the year limit on letters related to published articles had lapsed by the
time of submission
Renal mass sampling is usually performed percutaneously under computed tomography or ultrasound guidance by core biopsy and FNA biopsy In reference to the accuracy of FNA the only study cited in the AUA guideline is one by Patel et al which reported a sensitivity of 62.5
Arch Pathol Lab Med 143 June 2019
Letters to the Editor
Several recent studies on FNA of
kidney masses have been published that show the diagnostic performance to be far superior to that found in the AUA guideline albeit generally somewhat inferior to core needle biopsies For example in the systematic review and analysis of diagnos-
tic accuracy of percutaneous renal
tumor biopsy performed by Marconi et al the sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic core biopsies were 99.1 and 99.7 compared with 93.2 and 89.8 respectively for FNA Core needle biopsy and FNA are ideally performed together because the 2 methods are complementary occasionally only the FNA will be diagnostic whereas the core biopsy is nondiagnostic Diagnostic yield for FNAs of the kidney is operator dependent and the yield may be low if the radiologist is not adept at performing FNA Some pathologists perform touch imprints from core biopsies which confirms the adequacy of diagnostic material in biopsies. ,,
The recommendation preferring core biopsies over FNA was rated as
a moderate recommendation with low
strength of evidence grade C In the
AUA nomenclature this means that
better evidence is likely to change the
estimate of its effect such recommen-
dations are not considered practice standards The AUA guideline acknowledged the limitation of its as-
sessment of FNA based on inclusion
criteria of the systematic review.
Many pathology practices analyze both kidney FNA and core biopsy
therefore we recommend based on
the updated evidence that core biopsy and FNA be performed at the discretion of the radiologist and pathologist
Lisa A. Fatheree BS ASCP Patrick L. Fitzgibbons MDPriya Rao MD Nicole E. Thomas MPH
ASCP Ming Zhou MD PhD Rosemary Tambouret MD5
1
Pathology and Laboratory Quality
Center for Evidence Guidelines
College of American Pathologists
Northfield
Illinois
2
Department
of
Pathology St Jude Medical Center
3
Fullerton California Department of
Pathology UT MD Anderson Cancer
4
Center Houston Texas Department
of Pathology University of Texas South-
western
Medical
Center
Dallas
5
De-
partment of Pathology Massachusetts General Hospital Boston
1. Campbell SC Novick AC Belldegrun A et al
Guideline for the management of the clinical T1 renal mass J Urol 1271-1279
2. Campbell S Uzzo RG Allaf ME et al Renal
mass and localized renal cancer AUA guideline /
Urol 520
529
3. Patel HD Johnson MH Pierorazio PM et al
Diagnostic accuracy and risks of biopsy in the diagnosis of a renal mass suspicious for localized renal cell carcinoma systematic review of the
literatureJ Urol 1340-1347
4. Marconi L Dabestani S Lam TB et al
Systematic review and analysis of diagnostic
accuracy of percutaneous renal tumour biopsy Eur
Urol 660
673
5. Yang CS Choi E Idrees MT et al Percutaneous biopsy of the renal mass FNA or core needle
biopsy Cancer Cytopathol 407
415
6. Cate F Kapp ME Arnold SA et al Core needle
biopsy and find needle aspiration alone or in combination diagnostic accuracy and impact on
management of renal masses J Urol 2017
1396-1402
7. Renshaw AA Cibas ES Kidney and adrenal
gland In Cibas ES Ducatman BS eds Cytology
Diagnostic Principles and Clinical Correlates 4th ed
Philadelphia PA Saunders 423
452
8. Chen AL Brown PA Sweeney BJ et al Smears
are important for adequate cytologic diagnosis of
kidney lesions J Am Soc Cytopathol 2017
162-164
9. Hahn PF Eisenberg PJ Pitman MB Gazelle GS
Mueller PR Cytopathologic touch preparations
imprints from core needle biopsies accuracy
compared with that of needle aspirates AJR
Am J Roentgenol 1277
1279
Accepted for publication February 14
2019
The authors have no relevant financial
interest in the products or companies
described in this article
doi arpa.2019-0023
Malignant Mesothelioma
and Its Nonasbestos
Causes
To the Attanoos and col-
leagues,, reviewed the literature concerning nonasbestos causes for malignant mesothelioma They con-
cluded that most mesotheliomas not
clearly attributable to asbestos expo-
sure are spontaneous Their review did
not consider a common occult form of
asbestos exposure arising from the use of talcum powders In 1976 Rohl et al analyzed consumer talcums and reported that 10 of the 20 products 50 analyzed contained tremolite and anthophyllite Blount reported
asbestiform tremolite contamination
of the ore used in a popular baby powder Gordon et alt found asbesti-
Letters to the Editor 659
Letters to the Editor
form tremolite and anthophyllite in a popular body powder and Anderson et als found anthophyllite fibers in the
same brand
Statista Hamburg Germany a market research company reported
that some 100 million Americans used
body and baby powders in the years 2011 to 2017. It is possible to draw inferences about the prevalence of exposures to talcum powders in subjects with mesothelioma by querying the database of lung asbestos fiberburden measurements compiled by Victor Roggli MD Duke University
Medical Center Durham North Car-
olina
burden
measurements
were
made on 566 subjects female n = 75 13 with pleural mesothelioma
Talc fibers were detected in 332 of 491
68 of the men and 62 of 75 83
of the women The detection of
tremolite was significantly associated with the presence of talc P < .001 as was the detection of anthophyllite = .002 The presence of talc and associated amphiboles was more common in women than it was in men odds ratio 3.24 95 CI 1.65-6.35 This would be expected if women were more likely to be users of baby and body powders than men were
Lung burdens of talc and its amphi-
bole contaminants are markers of
exposure to containing dusts In
addition to talc exposures from talcum
powders there has been occupational and hobby exposure to industrial talc
in the United States but the number
of persons with exposures to industrial
talc is small compared with the 100 million users of baby and body pow-
ders
I conclude that
1. The use of body and baby powders
is common in the United States
Consumer surveys found that
about third of the population used those powders between 2011
and 2017
2. Measurements of retail talc products have found amphibole asbestos contamination of those products
3. A large series of measurements of asbestos fiber burdens in patients with pleural mesothelioma has
found the presence of talc to be
common exceeding 65 among
both men and women
4. Women were more than twice as
likely as men were to have talc in their tissues compatible with the hypothesis that women were more
likely to be users of baby and body powders Without accounting for amphibole asbestos exposures arising from the use of baby and body powders it is not possible to
conclude as Attanoos and col-
leagues have done that In North
America few mesotheliomas in
women at any site are attributable
to asbestos exposure
It is my opinion that without accounting for those occult asbestos exposures it is inappropriate to con-
clude that most mesotheliomas not
clearly attributable to asbestos exposure are spontaneous idiopathic
Murray M. Finkelstein PhD MD
University of Toronto Family and Community Medicine Toronto On-
tario Canada
1. Attanoos RL Churg A Galateau F Gibbs AR Roggli VL Malignant mesothelioma and its
asbestos causes Arch Pathol Lab Med 2018
753-760 doi 2017-0365 2. Rohl AN Langer AM Selikoff IJ et al
Consumer talcums and powders mineral and chemical characterization/ Toxicol Environ Health
255
284
3. Blount AM Amphibole content of cosmetic and pharmaceutical talcs Environ Health Perspect
225
230
4. Gordon RE Fitzgerald S Millette J. Asbestos in
commercial cosmetic talcum powder as a cause of
mesothelioma in women published correction
appears in Int J Occup Environ Health 2015
347
34I8 ntJ Occup Environ Health 2014
318
232
5. Anderson EL Sheehan PJ Kalmes RM Griffin
JR Assessment of health risk from historical use of
cosmetic talcum powder Risk Anal 2017
918-929
6. Statista U.S. population most used brands of body and baby powder from 2011 to 2017. https www.statista.com/statistics/285799/brands-of-bodypowder Accessed July
16 2018
Accepted for publication July 16 2018
The author has served as a consultant
toplaintiff's lawyers in asbestos and talc litigation
doi arpa.2018-0145
Overdiagnosis of Thyroid
Cancer The Children in
Fukushima Are in Danger
To the Editor am writing this letter because I was inspired by the editorial by Vicki J. Schnadig MD The children in Fukushima Japan are in danger In the thyroid screening
program of the Fukushima Health
660 Arch Pathol Lab Med 143 June 2019
Management Survey FHMS more
than 200 children have received a
diagnosis of thyroid cancer by ultrasonography US and needle aspiration cytology and most of them have already undergone surgery.The number is still increasing because there has been no change in the screening program since 2011. We must reconsider the natural history of thyroid cancer There are 2 major theories about thyroid carcinogenesis fetal cell carcinogenesis and early
set multistep carcinogenesis.3 It
should be noted that in both theories
early detection of thyroid cancer in
children can be harmful because of
either overdiagnosis or diagnosis too
early Only a limited number of residents
of Fukushima realize the risk of
overdiagnosis in thyroid US screening
because Fukushima Prefecture pro-
vides little information on possible negative effects of this program Fur-
thermore the US examination is
performed as one of the school programs Thus even though the local government insists that the participation of residents is voluntary most of the children and their parents regard it as mandatory In fact the rate of participation by schoolchildren is
more than 90
Only a few Japanese experts have reported on the possible harm caused by the FHMS and there has been no recommendation to stop thyroid screening from related academic societies.5 This might be due to the following 2 reasons First the FHMS which was planned by chief Japanese experts was started as a large national project with a budget of up to 1 billion Currently there is an awkward atmosphere with Japanese experts not willing to talk about the harm caused by this project Second as also happened in the case of Korea numerous
experts still do not understand the
concept of overdiagnosis They can see no harm in the early detection and
treatment of cancer Some say This
should not be called overdiagnosis since the FHMS helps to reduce the anxiety of residents Others say The harm caused by US thyroid screening
in Fukushima is very limited since the
procedures are carried out with care Overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer in
Fukushima has occurred in the youn-
ger generation The harm is more
serious than that which occurred in
Korea The children who receive a
diagnosis of thyroid cancer are regard-
Letters to the Editor