石綿曝露者における気道過敏性に関する研究 : 第一報 自覚症状の検討

Abstract

This study was carricd out in order to investigatc whether asbestos workers were subject to airway hyper-responsiveness. Two hundred and twelve asbestos workers whose chest roentogenograms showed almost normal appearance and office clerks matched by sex, age and smoking habit with asbestos workes were selected for this study. The author researched their subjective respiratory symptoms (i. e. cough, sputum, stridor, stridor in cold air inhalation, and dyspnea on effort) by questionnaires. Asbestos workers complained of all respiratory symptoms more frequently than office clerks, and especially, statistical significance was observed in frequencies of cough, sputum and dyspnea on effort. The asbestos workers indicated increasingly highcr frcquencies of those respiratory symptoms with increase in the duration of asbestos exposure, and espccially, statistical significance was observed in frcquencies of stridor and cold air inhalation phenomena. When asbestos workers complained of sputum, they also complained of stridor and/or cold air inhalation phenomena. These results suggest that asbestos induccs bronchitis and airway hyper-responsiveness.