Incidence of Serum-Precipitating Antibodies to Farmer’s Lung Antigens in Hokkaido

Abstract

The prevalence of serum-precipitating antibodies toMicropolyspora faeni and Thermoactinomyces vulgaris was studied by immunoelectrophoresis in 442 dairy farmers living in Hokkaido, the northernmost district of Japan. The prevalence rates of antibodies to M.faeni and T. vulgaris were 24.2 and 11.6%, respectively. The rate of antibodies to M.faeni was higher among females than males. This difference may be due to the large number of nonsmokers among females. Prevalence of antibodies to M.faeni or M. faeni and T. vulgaris was associated with a higher hay acreage and longer working hours per day in the cowshed, and not to the size of the dairy herd. These results were partly different from those reported from other countries.

Farmer's lung precipitins in Doubs (a department of France): prevalence and diagnostic value

“…The essential factor determining the presence of precipitins was the fact of dealing with the fodder provisions of cattle. This agrees with earlier studies (1,11,14). In contrast, the organization of the farm, the methods of storage and drying of fodder, and herd size had no influence on immunization.…”

Hypersensitivity pneumonitis: A new strategy for serodiagnosis and environmental surveys

“…Farmer's lung disease (FLD) is described with a large variety of identified antigens including actinomycetes (Saccharopolyspora rectivirgula, Thermoactinomyces vulgaris) and molds (Aspergillus, Absidia, Penicillium, Wallemia, Fusarium) [8,[19][20][21][22]. New FLD etiologic agents have been identified along with changes in professional practices [23,24].…”

“…A query on http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ with the following keywords: hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP), bird fanciers Lung, pigeon breeder's disease, farmer's lung and other specific disease names derived from occupational activities followed by each etiology with their synonyms, evaluated the number of publications related to the different etiologies of HP. Thus, by families of similar etiologies we obtained the following number of publications (in-brackets) for: Saccharopolyspora rectivirgula (=Micropolyspora faeni) (632), other actinomyces (148), avian proteins (627), Aspergillus (348), Penicillium (33), yeasts (32), mucorales (30), others fungi (65), mycobacteria (72), enterobacteria (16), eatable fungi (20), mites (33), chemical product (68), biological product (30) [35].…”