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Exposure to asbestiform fibers, including chrysotile and amphibole, is carcinogenic, causing malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) when inhaled. Some populations globally face Naturally Occurring Asbestos (NOA) exposure, leading to MPM cases like in Biancavilla, Italy, from Fluoro-edenite (FE) contamination. Studies show NOA exposure causes epigenetic changes, focusing on mesothelin methylation, an MPM marker, and altered inflammation, emphasizing the health risks of FE and asbestos. This research, conducted from February 2022 to October 2022, studied 125 construction workers from Biancavilla and 125 controls from 40 km away without Biancavilla work history. With at least ten years in construction and no respiratory conditions, participants underwent medical assessments and gave blood samples for analysis, including inflammation markers, mesothelin methylation, and soluble mesothelin-related protein levels. The results showed similar demographics but differing inflammation and methylation levels in exposed workers, suggesting long-term cellular changes. Pearson correlation showed intricate biomarker relationships. Significant inflammatory differences were found between FE exposed and non-exposed workers, indicating potential health impacts from FE. This raises concerns for communities like Biancavilla, emphasizing the importance of extensive epigenetic research for public health.

In Calabria (Southern Italy) naturally occurring asbestos (NOA) mainly occurs in the ophiolitic sequences cropping in the Mount Reventino area. The most common type of asbestos detected was the amphibole tremolite; fibrous antigorite and minor chrysotile were also found. The development of asbestos-related diseases depends on, among other things, the morphological characteristics of fibers, length and width, affecting the durability of asbestos fibers in the lung. In this work fifteen lung samples of sheep, goats and wild boars, grazing around the Mount Reventino area were collected and asbestos fibers analysed. Observed fibers (357), of which 97 % were tremolite and 3 % antigorite fibers, were grouped according to species, grazing area and age of the animals. The aim of this work was to highlight any differences among the groupings and to compare our size results with data in literature related to exposed populations. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) highlighted a positive correlation between tremolite fiber length and width and revealed groupings in terms of animal age. The Kruskal-Wallis test showed statistically significant differences between fiber mean widths in young and old animals. 63 % observed asbestiform fibers were longer than 5 μm and 7 % of the fibers were longer than 20 μm (critical fiber length connected to the frustrated phagocytosis by the macrophage). Fibers conforming to the Stanton Hypothesis size (predictor of the carcinogenic potency of fibers) were 1 %. Our size parameters of fibers detected in the animal lungs were in fairly good agreement with literature data for human asbestos exposure to tremolite. These results confirmed that an animal-sentinel system could be used to monitor the natural background of the airborne breathable fibers exposure. In addition, the size correlation of animal-human breathed fibers could be useful to study their potential toxicity. Additional data are necessary for improving the agreement with human exposure data., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In Naturally Occurring Asbestos (NOA) rich areas, water flows through asbestos bearing rocks and soils and generates waterborne fibres that may migrate in air and become a risk for humans. Research on the migration and dispersion after water vaporisation has been so far only marginally evaluated. This study investigates the migration in air of asbestos from a set of suspensions contaminated by chrysotile from Balangero (Italy), under controlled laboratory conditions. We evaluated i) the morphological modifications that might occur to chrysotile during migration from water to air, and ii) the amount of airborne chrysotile mobilised from standardised suspensions. Morphological alteration of asbestos fibres occurred during water-air migration and impacted on the analytical response of electron microscopy. Waterborne asbestos concentration higher than 40 ∙ 10 6 f/L generates in air concentration higher than 1 fibre per litre [f/L], the alarm threshold limit set by World Health Organization for airborne asbestos. A possible correlation between the waterborne fibre concentration as mass or number of fibres per volume unit [μg/L or f/L] was observed., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Ophiolites are known sources of naturally occurring asbestos (NOA). In Calabria (Southern Italy) NOA are mainly concentrated in the ophiolitic sequences cropping in the Mount Reventino area, in the southern part of the Sila massif, and along the Coastal Chain. The most common type of asbestos identified in the rocks of these areas belongs to the tremolite-actinolite series. Another identified asbestiform mineral is fibrous antigorite belonging to the serpentine mineral group with a minor amount of chrysotile. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the diffusion of natural asbestiform fibers from NOA using sentinel animals. Fifteen lung samples of sheep, goats and wild boars from Mount Reventino area and two from an area free from NOA were collected. The lung samples were subjected to anatomopathological examination and lung fiber burden analysis by electron microscopy. Abundant tremolite and few antigorite fibers were detected in the lung samples coming from the NOA area. No corpuscle of asbestos was observed. No fiber was found in the two lung samples of sheet from the area free from NOA. These concentrations of fibers per gram of dry weight of lung tissue (f/gdw) ranged from 10 4 to 10 6  f/gdw. The asbestos fibers detected in the lungs of the examined animals reflect the geological features of the areas where they grazed and lived. The anatomopathological analysis showed that 60% of the examined animals had macroscopic lesions affecting their lungs. The presence of tremolite fibers in the lungs confirms the diffusion of mineral fibers in the environment and the real advantage of using animal populations in the study areas., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Asbestos consists in natural minerals crystallized in a specific habit and possessing in particular properties. In the case of Naturally Occurring Asbestos, usual methods applied to the identification of mineral fibers and the determination of their possible asbestiform nature seems not efficient, especially in the case of mineral fibers included in mineral matrix. We present a new in-situ method based on the use of confocal Raman-in-SEM imaging implemented in a Scanning Electron Microscope as an efficient method for in-situ mineralogy. The limitation of conventional methods is discussed. We applied 2D-Raman imaging to the identification of sub-micrometric fibers included in different mineral matrix. We were able to identify actinolite fibers down to 400 nm in diameter, included in feldspar, quartz and/or calcite matrix. Moreover, Confocal Raman allows the collection of 3D data that would provide access to critical information on the morphology of the amphibole fibers in the volume, such as aspect ratio, fibers distribution and amphibole volume fraction. We performed this method on various examples of rocks containing actinolite fibers of mean structural formula is: Na 0,04-0,12 Mg 2,79-3,73 Al 0,29-0,58 K 0,01 Ca 1,79-1,98 Mn 0,01-0,09 Fe2+ 0,99-1,91 Fe3+Si 7,64-7,73 O 22 (OH) 2 . We demonstrated that coupling confocal Raman imaging and SEM is a new and efficient in-situ method for identification and morphological characterization of amphibole fibers., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS) is the only affordable analytical technique that can discriminate both morphology and elemental composition of inorganic fibers. SEM-EDS is indeed required to quantify asbestos in confounding natural matrixes (e.g. ophiolites), but is also time-consuming, operator dependent, and strongly relies on the stochastic distribution of the fibers on the filter surface. The balance between analytical time/cost and the method sensibility allows only about 0.5% of the filter to be analyzed, strongly affecting the statistical significance of results. To improve sensitivity and precision and enhance productivity, an unattended quantitative measurement of the asbestos fibers by SEM-EDS is proposed. The method identifies the particle shape first and determines their chemical composition later, saving EDS analytical time. Our approach was tested on four asbestos standards and the relative error on replicated measurements was < 10%. The proposed unattended method quantifies asbestos in natural confounding matrix, also with a very low asbestos content., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)