When asbestos-containing materials are damaged or disturbed by repair, remodelling or demolition activities, microscopic fibres become airborne and can be inhaled. Exposure to asbestos fibres leads to a variety of mesothelial reactions: pleural effusions, fibrotic pleural plaques, and malignant mesotheliomas.
Some of these types of Asbestos fibres get dissolved in the lungs, and thus do not pose dangers of developing Asbestos related diseases such as Asbestosis.
Ohio State University scientists believe they are the first in the world to study the molecular underpinnings of cancer by probing individual bonds between an asbestos fiber and human cells. "The hypothesis we're testing is that binding of cell surface receptors to asbestos fibres triggers a signal event, which initiates the cancer."
In an asbestos qualitative analysis, the major methods are X-ray diffraction analysis and visual observation by operators using a microscope. In the usual visual observation process, the operators check the asbestos fibres in the view of the microscope and count the number of asbestos fibres The dispersion staining method identifies asbestos fibres with color dispersion from an immersion liquid combined with polarization.
