Pleural abnormalities in the Framingham Heart Study: prevalence and CT image features by Araki et al

The report by Araki et al is important for a number of reasons, most significantly that it is the first-ever study of pleural abnormalities potentially related to asbestos in a large, general population (the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) Third Generation cohort) that is based on chest CT scans rather than chest radiographs.1 Pleural abnormalities were reported to be present in 1.5% of the study population. A key conclusion of the study was that the prevalence of pleural abnormalities in the present study was significantly lower than what was observed in NHANES II (3.9%), and this was taken as evidence in support of reduced asbestos exposures in the decades since the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) II data were collected in the period 1976–1980.2 It is important to note that the results of NHANES II were based on chest radiographs, while the results for the FHS cohort...

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