• Isabelle Thaon, Valérie Demange, Fabrice Herin, Annie Touranchet, and Christophe Paris.
• Unité Mixte de Recherche 6249 Chrono-environnement Centre National de Recherche Scientifique/Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon, France. i.thaon@chu-nancy.fr
• Chest. 2012 Jul 1;142(1):192-9.

BackgroundThere is no consensus at the present time about the effect of welding on lung function decline. This study compared lung function decline between blue-collar workers exposed and not exposed to welding fumes in a French longitudinal cohort of 21,238 subjects aged 37 to 52 years at inclusion.MethodsMedical data, occupation, sector of activity, and spirometry were recorded twice by occupational physicians in 1990 and 1995. A job-exposure matrix was used to identify 503 male blue-collar workers exposed to welding fumes and 709 control subjects and to define the weekly duration of exposure to welding fumes.ResultsBaseline lung function parameters were higher in workers exposed to welding fumes than in control subjects. After a 5-year follow-up, welding-fume exposure was associated with a nonsignificant decline in FVC (P = .06) and FEV(1) (P = .07) after adjustment for age, pack-years, BMI, and baseline value of the parameter. A significant accelerated decline in FEV(1) (P = .046) was also observed in never smokers exposed to welding fumes. An “exposure-response” relationship was observed between FEV(1) decline and weekly duration of exposure to welding fumes in nonsmokers but not in smokers.ConclusionsBlue-collar workers exposed to welding fumes showed accelerated decline in lung function, which, in nonsmokers, was related to weekly duration of exposure.

19 keywords...

hide…