Environmental mycological study and allergic respiratory disease among tobacco processing workers

This study presents the results of an investigation of respiratory symptoms, lung function, chest X-ray examinations, analysis of specific IgE antibodies and skin prick tests to fungi on 130 tobacco-processing workers and 112 control workers. Industrial hygiene survey and environmental mycological studies were also performed. The average dust concentrations ranged from 13.76 to 29.55 mg/m(3) in the tobacco processing workshops. Also, the numbers of fungi colonies in the processing environments were much higher than those in the control environments. The prevalences of chronic respiratory or nasal symptoms in exposed workers were significantly higher than those in control workers (p<0.05 or p<0.01). The prevalences of lung function abnormalities in the exposed workers were significantly higher than those in control workers (p<0.05). The positive prevalences of specific IgE reactions to fungi (26.92% for A.fumigatus and 51.54% for Rhizopus nigricans) in exposed workers were also significantly higher than those in control workers (p<0.01). The positive prevalences of the skin prick test showed that 18.46% of the exposed workers were positive to A. fumigatus and 23.85% were positive to Rhizopus nigricans. Our results suggested that tobacco processing workers may develop respiratory diseases related to tobacco dust and we consider that fungi might be one of the allergens causing allergic respiratory or nasal diseases in tobacco processing workers.