Fungus and mycotoxins studies in hospital environment: A scoping review

Sham, Noraishah Mohammad; Ahmad, Nurul Izzah; Pahrol, Muhammad Alfatih; Leong, Yin‐Hui

doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2021.107626

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Te fndings discovered that intensive care units (ICUs) and wards were home to various fungus species, primarily Aspergillus spp. (Sham et al, 2021). Additional information on analysis for secondary metabolites in indoor air in building environments reported in this current review believes that more studies in this area can be pursued to gain more knowledge and understanding to solve issues quickly and efectively.…”

Section: Mycotoxins In Buildingsmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Tis review was started with a concurrent investigation on mycotoxins in Peninsular Malaysia's healthcare institutions initiated by researchers from the Institute for Medical Research (IMR), Malaysia. A scoping review was published covering topics on fungal identifcation in hospital settings, with participants from many nations and locations [38]. Te review was generally on fungus profling in hospitals, with limited papers reviewed on mycotoxin distribution.…”

Section: Mycotoxins In Buildingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Scoping Review on Fungus and Mycotoxin Studies in the Building’s Environment: Mycotoxin Analysis by Mass Spectrometry

Abdul Rahman,

Ahmad,

Mohd Salim

et al. 2024

International Journal of Analytical Chemistry

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It has been well-established that mycotoxins are poisonous chemical metabolites secreted by certain molds. Some of them significantly affect the health of humans and livestock. Increasing attention is now being paid to uncovering and identifying mycotoxins’ presence in the building’s environment. However, the main challenge remains in suitable and reliable analytical methods for their identification and detection in infected structures. GC-MS and LC-MS/MS techniques have been used extensively for mycotoxin analysis, and advancement in these techniques enabled a more comprehensive range of mycotoxins to be detected. As such, this study aimed to address a brief overview of various phenomena of existing sample collection, preparation, and analysis to detect mycotoxins in the building’s environment. This scoping review includes articles from 2010 to 2020 available from PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane, Wiley, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect. Duplicate articles were removed, and exclusion criteria were applied to eliminate unrelated studies, resulting in 14 eligible articles. The present study provides an overview of mycotoxin analysis by GC-MS and LC-MS/MS in buildings. Many techniques are available for analyzing and detecting multiple mycotoxins using these methods. Future efforts would focus on rapid assays and tools enabling measuring a broader range of mycotoxins in a single matrix and lower detection limits. In addition, it would assist future findings on new techniques and mycotoxins that existed in the building’s environment.

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Section: Mycotoxins In Buildingsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Mycotoxins In Buildingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Scoping Review on Fungus and Mycotoxin Studies in the Building’s Environment: Mycotoxin Analysis by Mass Spectrometry

Abdul Rahman,

Ahmad,

Mohd Salim

et al. 2024

International Journal of Analytical Chemistry

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“…However, due to the complexity and vulnerable immune status of patients, clinical thresholds for healthcare settings should be revised and further researched. 30 Improved indoor air quality in healthcare settings can have many benefits, including reducing the risk of nosocomial infections and exposure to mould spores, and is just as crucial to use thresholds here as in residential homes and workplaces. For example, it's well known that nosocomial infections caused by bacteria like MRSA and fungi such as Candida auris are acquired in healthcare facilities, while black yeasts like Exophiala dermatitidis are of increasing concern.…”

Section: Healthcare Settings and Environmental Sporesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental and clinical mould spore risk thresholds

Jones¹

2023

JBMOA

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Escalating environmental pollution and urbanization is associated with a rise in fungal contamination, which contributes to a variety of health concerns, particularly respiratory tract ailments such as allergic rhinitis, asthma, bronchitis, and sick building syndrome. Spore trap testing serves as a straightforward method for evaluating the number of spores/m³ in the air. Multiple studies indicate that 1000 spores/m³ represents the upper threshold for normal levels of mould exposure, with levels above this linked to adverse health effects, thereby establishing the environmental threshold. According to the literature, the clinical threshold is 3000 spores/m³ for Cladosporium and 100 spores/m³ for Alternaria. This mini review provides an overview of the existing environmental and clinical thresholds for fungal contamination to assess risk. We examine fungal threshold levels in both outdoor and indoor settings, encompassing residential homes, libraries, buildings, workplaces, and hospitals. In conclusion, environmental scientists, microbiologists/mycologists, occupational hygienists, insurance assessors, the real estate sector, clinical healthcare staff, and others must use and apply both environmental and clinical threshold levels to assess fungal contamination risk in indoor environments to protect public health. And finally, this mini review highlights the need for increased focus and research to ensure that appropriate guidelines and industry standards are developed, applied, and enforced that incorporate objective spore thresholds to quantify risk from fungal mediated adverse health in various indoor environments.

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“…Most research on IAQ have concentrated on hospital areas with specialized conditions, such as the ICU, wards, operation theaters, and isolation rooms ( 11 , 33 , 35 , 58 ). Meanwhile, common areas like the hospital outpatient departments are understudied and not evaluated well enough regarding their IAQ performances and the limiting and facilitating factors of having good IAQ ( 48 , 59 ).…”

Section: Limitations Of the Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, a hospital's indoor air CO level can still be present at a high concentration level even though the hospital is well equipped with ventilation system if the outdoor air CO level in the same area is already high ( 66 ). Moreover, even though mechanical ventilation system is effective in reducing the amount of bioaerosols in indoor air, Sham et al ( 35 ) have identified that some fungal genera like Aspergillus, Cladosporium, and Penicillium were still frequently contaminating hospital indoor air. In addition, elevated concentrations of chemical compounds in indoor air remains a problem in many regions ( 7 ).…”

Section: Relevant Public Health Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hospital indoor air quality and its relationships with building design, building operation, and occupant-related factors: A mini-review

Ibrahim

Samsudin

Ishak

et al. 2022

Front. Public Health

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Indoor air quality (IAQ) has recently gained substantial traction as the airborne transmission of infectious respiratory disease becomes an increasing public health concern. Hospital indoor environments are complex ecosystems and strategies to improve hospital IAQ require greater appreciation of its potentially modifiable determinants, evidence of which are currently limited. This mini-review updates and integrates findings of previous literature to outline the current scientific evidence on the relationship between hospital IAQ and building design, building operation, and occupant-related factors. Emerging evidence has linked aspects of building design (dimensional, ventilation, and building envelope designs, construction and finishing materials, furnishing), building operation (ventilation operation and maintenance, hygiene maintenance, access control for hospital users), and occupants' characteristics (occupant activities, medical activities, adaptive behavior) to hospital IAQ. Despite the growing pool of IAQ literature, some important areas within hospitals (outpatient departments) and several key IAQ elements (dimensional aspects, room configurations, building materials, ventilation practices, adaptive behavior) remain understudied. Ventilation for hospitals continues to be challenging, as elevated levels of carbon monoxide, bioaerosols, and chemical compounds persist in indoor air despite having mechanical ventilation systems in place. To curb this public health issue, policy makers should champion implementing hospital IAQ surveillance system for all areas of the hospital building, applying interdisciplinary knowledge during the hospital design, construction and operation phase, and training of hospital staff with regards to operation, maintenance, and building control manipulation. Multipronged strategies targeting these important determinants are believed to be a viable strategy for the future control and improvement of hospital IAQ.

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Fungus and mycotoxins studies in hospital environment: A scoping review

Cited by 16 publications

References 53 publications

A Scoping Review on Fungus and Mycotoxin Studies in the Building’s Environment: Mycotoxin Analysis by Mass Spectrometry

A Scoping Review on Fungus and Mycotoxin Studies in the Building’s Environment: Mycotoxin Analysis by Mass Spectrometry

Environmental and clinical mould spore risk thresholds

Hospital indoor air quality and its relationships with building design, building operation, and occupant-related factors: A mini-review

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