The Interaction of Asbestos and Smoking in Lung Cancer: A Modified Measure of Effect
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The ratio of the relative risk of lung cancer due to asbestos exposure in non-smokers to that in smokers has been termed the relative asbestos effect (RAE). In a review, Liddell [Liddell FDK (2001) Ann Occup Hyg; 45: 341-56] estimated that the RAE was approximately 2. This measure is satisfactory when there is an appreciable relative risk due to asbestos but does not generalize to lower levels of exposure. A modified measure is proposed to overcome this difficulty. The modified measure, RAEm, is defined as the ratio of the excess relative risk (RR - 1) in non-smokers to that in smokers. METHODS: The cohort studies combined in Liddell's 2001 analysis have been used to give a combined estimate of the modified measure. RESULTS: The combined value of RAEm is 3.19 with 95% confidence interval 1.67-6.13. CONCLUSION: The excess relative risk of lung cancer from asbestos exposure is about three times higher in non-smokers than in smokers. The modified measure has been placed within a more versatile model of interaction. If interaction is present the relative risk from asbestos exposure changes only slightly between light and heavy smokers, but is higher in very light smokers and non-smokers. The relative risk estimated from epidemiological studies of a mixed population of non-smokers and smokers applies to smokers.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.046 | 0.081 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.011 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".