EDITORIAL

Occupational asthma

Defining occupational asthma and confirming the diagnosis: what do experts suggest?

Jean-Luc Malo¹, Anthony Newman Taylor²

¹ Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montreal, Montréal, Canada
² Department of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, London, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Jean-Luc Malo
Department of Chest Medicine, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, 5400 W Gouin Blvd, Montreal, Canada H4J 1C5; malojl@meddir.umontreal.ca. and Professor A J Newman Taylor, Department of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, Emmanuel Kaye Building, Manresa Road, London SW3 6LR, UK; a.newmant@imperial.ac.uk

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Diagnosis of occupational asthma

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The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Questionnaires administered in general populations have shown that about 10–15% of subjects with asthma report that their asthma is worse at work.¹ A proportion of these subjects may show what is called occupational asthma (OA)—that is, asthma caused by an agent inhaled at work. It is important to confirm or exclude a diagnosis of OA for at least two reasons: (1) if a worker with OA continues to be exposed to the causal agent, this can lead to worsening of asthma and diminishes the likelihood of resolution; it has been shown consistently that the duration of exposure with symptoms is the principal determinant of persisting asthma after avoidance of exposure^2,3 and (2) removing a worker from her/his workplace has serious psychosocioeconomic consequences for the worker, often when young, and also for the employer and society.⁴ Advice to leave a job in these circumstances needs to be based on . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Niven, R M., Burge, S, Fishwick, D, Francis, H C (2008). Authors' reply. Occup. Environ. Med. 65: 215-216 [Full Text]  
• Tarlo, S. M (2008). Standards of care for occupational asthma. Thorax 63: 190-192 [Full Text]  

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Authors response to editorial

Helen C Francis, et al.

Occup Environ Med Online, 8 Aug 2007 [Full text]