Several of the fibres considered in this meeting have been reviewed by previous working groups convened by the IARC Monographs Programme. In this section the summaries of the pertinent IARC Monographs (Vol. 68, 1997; Vol. 81, 2002) on cancer in humans are reproduced and additional studies published since the most recent Monograph are added.

The Working Group also considered the IARC Monographs on exposures in the textile manufacturing industry (Vol. 48) and wood dust (Vol. 62), but concluded that the studies on cancer in humans reported in these Monographs would not contribute to the evaluation of carcinogenicity of the fibres considered here.