... crucially implicated in quartz-induced pulmonary diseases, including fibrosis and cancer. We have investigated the significance of the particle surface reactivity of respirable quartz dust in relation ... evidence showing that mod-ification of the particle surface by either grinding or coat-ing with PVNO or aluminium salts modifies quartz-induced cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, inflammogenicity andfibrogenicity ... analysis of the % of posi-tively stained cells showed a significant increase, espe-cially in focal pathologically-altered lung areas. To date, in the field of particle research, the induction of...