Risk factors for development of community-acquired pneumonia in workers of main occupations in production of chrysotile asbestos

Abstract

Inpatient examination covered 46 workers of main occupations in chrysotile asbestos production, with diagnosed occupational disease “asbestosis”, and reference group comprising 20 healthy workers of the same enterprise. Th e results present comparative analysis of clinical and anamnesis data in dependence on the past pneumonia, studies of immune state in the asbestosis patients and the healthy workers, data on high occurrence of pneumonia in the workers, comparative analysis of respiratory infections occurrence and concomitant diseases according to the outpatients records and medical examinations. Findings are reliable diff erences and earlier respiratory manifestations in the past-pneumonia workers exposed to chrysotile asbestos, higher occurrence (1.3-fold) of chronic bronchitis and severe disorders of bronchial patency. Immune response factors were characterized as pathogenetic links of pneumococcus infectious invasion. Additional risk factors of pneumonia appeared to be frequent respiratory infections, chronic diseases of upper respiratory tract and middle ear, lower functional state of neutrophils, increased auto-reactivity. To evaluate signifi cance of risk factors infl uence, the authors used fi tt ing criterion X2 (chi-square). Intensity of relationships between the risk factor and outcome was evaluated by contingency coeffi  cient of Pearson. Signifi cance level (p) for all the calculation was accepted less than 0.05.