Inhaled microplastics were frequently found lodged in people's lungs, especially people with lung malignancy, researchers found.
In a prospective observational study of 100 people undergoing diagnostic bronchoscopy, those with lung cancer more frequently had microplastic particles detected on bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and airway tissue sampling (66% vs 46% in those without lung malignancy, P=0.044).
There was a median one microplastic particle found from BAL in these cancer patients, as opposed to approximately zero in controls (P=0.045), and the association between microplastic burden and lung malignancy remained significant after adjustment for smoking exposure, age, and sex (OR 2.00, 95% CI 1.01-3.95), according to Ilias Dimeas, MD, of University College Dublin, and the University of Thessaly, Greece.
Dimeas presented his group's study during a poster session at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
"This type of study doesn't tell us why we found more microplastics in the samples from lung cancer patients," he cautioned in a press release. "Microplastics could contribute to inflammation or other biological processes that may contribute to diseases like cancer, but it is also possible that diseased lungs simply retain particles differently than healthy lungs."
