A Case Report of Lung Cancer in a Horse Trainer Caused by Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica: An Exposure Assessment

ABSTRACT

Here, we present a case of lung cancer in a 48-year-old male horse trainer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such case report to include an exposure assessment of respirable crystalline silica (RCS) as a quartz. The trainer had no family history of lung cancer. Although he had a 15 pack/year cigarette-smoking history, he had stopped smoking 12 years prior to his diagnosis. For the past 23 years, he had performed longeing, and trained 7-12 horses per day on longeing arena surfaces covered by recycled sands, the same surfaces used in race tracks. We investigated his workplace RCS exposure, and found it to be the likely cause of his lung cancer. The 8-hour time weight average range of RCS was 0.020 to 0.086 mg/m3 in the longeing arena. Horse trainers are exposed to RCS from the sand in longeing arenas, and the exposure level is high enough to have epidemiological ramifications for the occupational risk of lung cancer.