[Chronic respiratory symptomatology and obstructive syndrome in workers of a chemical industry]

The main purpose of the study was to asses the frequency and distribution of chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma and airflow obstruction among workers employed in the chemical industry. Our special interest was focused on finding out the high risk groups in various plants and an attempt had been made to determine to what extent the occurrence of symptoms could have been attributed to the occupational exposure after excluding age and smoking habit as confounding variables. The epidemiological data concerned 4717 male workers of the chemical complex situated near Cracow, Poland. The epidemiological study covered interviews, spirometric testing and anthropometric measurements. Environmental assessment had been done done simultaneously in all occupational post over the whole chosen week in all shifts. The symptoms of chronic bronchitis and bronchial asthma as well as airflow obstruction occurred most frequently in older persons and in those being smokers. The prevalence rates of bronchial asthma and airflow obstruction was higher than in the general population of inhabitants of Cracow and this substantial excess could be attributed to the specific occupational environment. The detailed analysis performed showed in a clear way that chronic bronchitis is not a risk factor in the development of airflow obstruction but taking into account the fact that bronchial asthma had negative impact on the natural history of airflow obstruction, industrial physicians should take up adequate prophylactic measures concerning persons with asthmatic symptoms or its history in the past. The most intriguing results of our study give an evidence that styrene and methyl methacrylate develop strong harmful effect on the lung tissue.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)