[Morphology of the ferruginous bodies and characteristics of lesions in coal mine pneumoconiosis].

Ferruginous bodies were found in lung tissue collected from 105 coal miner autopsies in Beijing coal area. The incidence rate was 83.8%. Cores of the ferruginous bodies consist of black or transparent fibres partially or entirely coated with golden brown colored iron-protein. They were polymorphic in appearance, and were widely distributed in the lungs. Most of them located in the pulmonary alveoli, and some in the inflammatory or carcinomatous lesions. Besides the pneumoconiosis lesion, there were also abundant multinuclear foreign-body giant cells, and proliferation of type II alveolar cells in the alveoli. Regardless of contact history with coal dust, the average number of ferruginous bodies found in the lungs of workers with no pneumoconiosis was much lower than that with pneumoconiosis lesions (P less than 0.05). The number of ferruginous bodies tends to increase with the severity of the pneumoconiosis lesion. The authors consider that it is worth while to make a further study in elucidating the relationship between ferruginous body and the high incidence of pneumoconiosis in Beijing coal area.