[The health surveillance of workers previously exposed to asbestos: criticality of intervention protocols]

The health surveillance of former-exposed asbestos workers is today a current theme, as well as a social and healthcare need. The long latency periods of asbestos related diseases have determined and determine a constant development of cases of these pathologies. To face with these issues, it is necessary to have available adequate diagnostic, clinical and epidemiological tools, that allow efficient health interventions as well as an acceptance of social and medico-legal requests, claimed by workers exposed to asbestos during their work career. To date, health surveillance protocols available for different Italian regions are uneven. This paper aims to synthetically resume contents of some of these protocols and to discuss them, on the light of emerging literature evidence. Based on these considerations, it is finally proposed a scheme for the health surveillance of former-exposed asbestos workers. This proposal is not intended as a comprehensive treatise, rather than as a preliminary approach of this specific healthcare issue.