Work-Related Asthma in Automobile Spray Painters: Two Case Reports

Abstract

This report describes two patients who had developed asthma after working as automobile painters with isocyanate-based aerosol paint for two years or over. In both patients asthma was confirmed using the standard diagnostic procedure. One of the subjects was atopic. One was ex-smoker and the other had never smoked. Neither had a family history of asthma. The symptoms occurred after workplace exposure lasting two years in one patient and three in the other. As both reported work-relatedness of the symptoms, they underwent serial peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) measurement and bronchoprovocation testing. Significant work-related changes in PEFR diurnal variations and in non-specific bronchial hyperresponsiveness (NSBH) were observed in one patient, suggesting allergic occupational asthma (OA), while the other patient was diagnosed work-exacerbated asthma (WEA). Our data confirm that spray painting is an occupation with increased risk of respiratory impairment and asthma.KEY WORDS: bronchial provocation tests, isocyanates, occupational asthma, peak expiratory flow rate, work-exacerbated asthma Minov J, et al.

Prevention Guidance for Isocyanate-Induced Asthma Using Occupational Surveillance Data

“…The most common work process presented here is exposure to automotive paints, a process that is well known to cause respiratory disease, (8,45,46) and that has been associated with two fatalities. (33,34) One of the indirect exposures presented here was for an automotive manager in a collision repair setting, and the case is similar to an indirectly exposed automotive secretary with hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP), reported by Schreiber et al (9) High airborne exposure to MDI during truck bed lining application has been previously reported in Washington and we report two cases of asthma in truck bed applicators.…”