[Pleural plaques and an asbestos environment in Northern Corsica]. / Plaques pleurales et environnement asbestosique en Corse du Nord.

As opposed to North-West Corsica, North-East Corsica is rich in asbestos outcrops and a source of environmental pollution as can be seen in the airborne concentration of chrysotile and above all tremolite. We have composed the frequency of asbestos pleural plaques occurring in subjects in the two regions starting with a retrospective analysis of the radiological records of 1,721 patients born in Northern Corsica and having no occupational exposure to asbestos. The frequency is 3.8% in the North-East and 1.1% in the North-West (p less than 5%). The relative East-West risk, which is 3.3%, shows the existence of a link between pleural plaques and environmental exposure to asbestos in North-East Corsica.

Bilateral pleural plaques in Corsica: a non-occupational asbestos exposure marker.

The North-East quarter of Corsica being rich in asbestos deposits, we checked the chest radiographs of 1721 patients born in North Corsica, without occupational exposure to asbestos, in order to show an excess of asbestos pleural plaques in those born in the N.E. quarter. Of the 56/1710 patients with bilateral plaques, 53 were born in N.E., and three in N.W. The incidence of plaques was thus respectively 3.7% and 1.2% (p less than 0.05). The site of birth of these 56 patients was compared to that of 213 matched control patients without plaques, born in North Corsica. The percentage of patients with plaques born in villages with asbestos deposits was 94.6 per cent, versus 58.2 per cent for the control patients; the relative risk index is 12.7. This work is the first report of environmental asbestos plaques in Western Europe.