[Diseases caused by asbestos dust and the trend of their development in exposed workers in 1951-2003].

The paper summarizes the principal information on the properties and effects of asbestos and a survey of diseases which can be recognized in the Czech Republic as occupational diseases according to the List of Occupational Diseases (Government Order 290/1995 Coll.). The paper lists possible diagnostic means and criteria for evaluation and presents a survey of developmental trends of the disease in exposed workers of the plant under study. In the period of years 1951-2003, 87 cases of occupational diseases were reported. The first asbestosis occurred in 1955, the first lung cancer in a patient with a previously reported asbestosis in 1962, the first pleural mesothelioma in 1976, the first asbestosis of the lung with concurrent lung cancer in 1981, and the first pleural hyalinosis in 1999. A very serious fact is that 56, i.e. 64.4% of diseases, particularly lung cancer and mesothelioma, were diagnosed after the termination of working in risk and many years of latency. A long-term folow-up of workers, even of those with a short exposure, is therefore necessary.