Chronic obstructive airway disease due to occupational exposure

Details

• Personal Author:
  Blanc PD ; Hnizdo, Eva ; Kreiss, Kathleen ; Torén, Kjell
• Description:
  Long before personal cigarette smoking was widespread, medical writers recognized that "dusty trades" were associated with various lung diseases. "Miner's phthisis" was prototypical of such diseases. This and related conditions (e.g., "grinder's rot'·) were associated with exposure to inorganic dusts and can best be understood by today's nosology as one or another of the pneumoconioses (with or without superimposed tubercular disease). Clinical syndromes consistent with chronic bronchitis or airway obstruction, in particular among persons experiencing heavy organic dust inhalation, were already well described throughout the 19th century. By the mid-20th century, occupational exposures in the various dusty trades were generally presumed to be contributors to chronic bronchitis specifically and, by extension, to airway disrase more broadly defined. For example, a key 1953 analysis of mortality data from the 1930s found that work in dust)' trades, even within the smne social class, was linked to bronchitis morlality. [n 1958, Fletcher noted that "men who work in dusty trades, especially coal miners, have a higher prevalence of symptons of bronchitis and emphysema .. .. ". In the early 1960s, the '"Dutch hypothesis" was articulated, holding that bronchitis and chronic airflow obstruction fell along a spectrum, with the ultimate pathophysiological manifestations of disease dependent on a combination of host and environmental factors. Fletcher's landmark studies, which came to downplay the role of chronic bronchitis in the progression of airway obstruction, coincided with the ascendancy of cigarette smoking as a major independent risk factor for airflow limitation -defined chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This fit in with the "British hypothesis," which viewed COPD and asthma as separate processes with distinct causal pathways. The paramount importance of smoking in COPD tended to eclipse all other potential associations. This was especially true of consideration of posslble links between occupational exposures and COPD, with or without concomitant chronic bronchitis. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Dust Environmental Exposure Environmental Health Epidemiology Lung Diseases Occupational Diseases Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Respiratory System Respiratory Tract Diseases Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety

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• Keywords:
  Airway-obstruction Airway-resistance Diseases Dust-exposure Dust-particles Dusts Environmental-exposure Environmental-factors Lung-disease Occupational-diseases Occupational-exposure Occupational-hazards Occupational-health Pulmonary-system-disorders Respiratory-system-disorders Risk-factors

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• ISBN:
  9781842145913
• Publisher:
  CRC Press
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Book
• Place as Subject:
  Florida ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 4 ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DRDS - Division of Respiratory Disease Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  375-391
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20043116
• Citation:
  Asthma in the workplace, fourth edition. Malo J-L, Chan-Yeun M, Bernstein DI, eds. New York: CRC Press, 2013 Jan; :375-391
• Editor(s):
  Malo J-L; Chan-Yeung M; Bernstein DI
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Asthma in the workplace, fourth edition
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:479e26b0f915ee507374ed0e4c4a9643fb25ddfad226a5a50ce496e15160e03b97844a9756484a0d3362b888bd682c3cc3e79cbd2e4a9cefaf02e3e37d748ea0
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/195126/cdc_195126_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.01 MB ]