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A study of the prevalence of occupational asthma among workers exposed to eastern-white-cedar dust was conducted on 42 current and former employees (mean age 31 years) of a sawmill that had started operations 30 months earlier. The sawmill manufactured shingles from eastern-white-cedar. The subjects completed a respiratory symptom questionnaire. Industrial hygiene monitoring for wood dust was performed at the sawmill. Thirty four subjects were current or former smokers. Twenty eight subjects had a history indicative of asthma, reporting at least two of the symptoms: wheezing, chest tightness, dyspnea, and cough. Five had medically diagnosed asthma. The asthmatic symptoms appeared to be of occupational origin in 25 subjects. The authors conclude that the prevalence of eastern-white-cedar occupational asthma in this population is comparable to that identified in previous studies of western-red-cedar exposed workers.
American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 150(6):1697-1701, 1994. (29 references)
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