The early pathogenesis of asbestos-induced lung disease.

This paper presents new findings obtained using animal models on the basic mechanisms of asbestos-induced lung disease. Recent, highly visible reviews on the subject have clearly pointed out that little is known about the cellular mechanisms through which inhaled asbestos fibers cause the well known, debilitating lung disease - asbestosis (i.e. interstitial pulmonary fibrosis). During the past five years, my colleagues and I have published a series of papers in which we have attempted to elucidate, in a rat model of asbestosis, the initial events of 1) asbestos fiber deposition, 2) translocation of fibers to the lung interstitium, 3) the response of pulmonary macrophages and the mechanisms through which these cells are attracted to sites of initial asbestos deposition, and 4) the developmental pathogenesis of the earliest anatomic lesion consequent to asbestos exposure.