The European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals (ECETOC) convened a workshop in June 2005 to address the speculation that exposure to specific chemicals, and/or chemical pollutants in general, may play an important role in the increased prevalence of allergy and asthma in 'westernized' societies. This paper summarises one perspective arrived at during this workshop. It was acknowledged that certain chemicals and certain types of pollution might trigger or exacerbate asthmatic reactions in sensitised subjects. However, overall levels of pollution appear not to have had a major impact upon the prevalence of atopic allergy. Epidemiological studies suggest that pollution may in some circumstances protect from acquisition of sensitisation. Increasing exposure to household chemicals may enhance pre-existing allergies, but evidence for their causation of allergy is lacking. Other risk factors considered included societal dietary changes and exposure to endotoxins. Future research needs were identified which included epidemiological studies employing exposure and biomonitoring data, studies on domestic exposure to chemicals and their association with the incidence of allergy and asthma, and prospective birth cohort studies employing well-defined aspects of lifestyle, diet, chemical and endotoxin exposure as factors that may drive susceptibility to allergy and asthma.

No abstract

A 90-year-old woman developed intraductal adenocarcinoma (TNM classification pT2, G2) of the left breast 18 years after initial pacemaker implantation deep to the left breast. There was no evidence of local or distant metastasis and she was treated with local excision and tamoxifen.

A literature review and analysis of inhalation bioavailability data for large therapeutic proteins was conducted in order to develop a practical estimate of the inhalation bioavailability of these drugs. This value is incorporated into equations used to derive occupational exposure limits(OELs) to protect biopharmaceutical manufacturing workers from systemic effects. Descriptive statistics implies that a value of 0.05, or 5% is an accurate estimate for large therapeutic proteins (molecular weight ≥ 40kDa). This estimate is confirmed by pharmacokinetic modeling of data from a human daily repeat-dose inhalation study of immunoglobulin G. In conclusion, we recommend using 5% bioavailability by inhalation when developing OELs for large therapeutic proteins.