Sensitization and chronic beryllium disease at a primary manufacturing facility, part 1: historical exposure reconstruction

Sensitization and chronic beryllium disease at a primary manufacturing facility, part 3: exposure–response among short-term workers

“…The strengths of this study lie in its design and in the detailed data that were available, both from workers (eg, work histories) and existing historical sampling data (fullshift personal cassette, full-shift size-separated impactor, and general area samples) (16). The availability and use of these full-shift samples, collected systematically and averaging about 14 samples per job title, provided a decided advantage in creating these exposure estimates.…”

“…The job-exposure matrices were based on a full-shift cassette sampling survey of all jobs and an impactor sampling survey, both conducted in 1999, with adjustment backwards to 1994 based on annual variability in general area samples (16). Despite the expertise required to interpret these data, the large quantity of sampling data (personal cassette and general area) provides a more stable basis for creation of estimates than any other study to date.…”

“…No CBD was observed when total mass and respirable cumulative exposures were <0.38 µg/m 3 -year and 0.33 µg/m 3 -year, respectively; 44% of participants' exposures were below these levels (table 2b). Additional summary data for all exposure estimates are available in Virji et al (16).…”

“…Exposure to airborne total, respirable, and submicron mass concentration beryllium was assigned to study participants for the entire duration of their onsite work history (16). Briefly, to obtain historical exposure estimates for all groups, we constructed a job-exposure matrix (JEM) for the years 1994-1999 by applying temporal adjustment factors to baseline exposure estimates for job groups.…”

Sensitization and chronic beryllium disease at a primary manufacturing facility, part 2: validation of historical exposures

“…However, exposure-response relationships for BeS and CBD have been inconsistent (2,3). Possible reasons for this inconsistency include lack of accurate and precise estimates of historical exposure leading to exposure misclassification, lack of biologically relevant exposure indices and summary measures, different bioavailability among the various forms of beryllium, exclusion of the skin as a route of exposure for sensitization, and lack of consideration of the impact of dose rate and genetic susceptibility (4). Few epidemiologic studies of BeS and CBD have utilized quantitative exposure data (3,(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10).…”