Work in brief
NEW GUIDELINES ON OCCUPATIONAL ASTHMA
In many countries occupational asthma is the commonest of all work related respiratory disorders. Thus, evidence based guidelines on its prevention, identification, and management are of the utmost importance to occupational physicians, health and safety practitioners, and public health officials. In this issue, Nicholson et al1 provide such a set of guidelines based on an extensive review of the literature. Altogether, 474 original studies and over 2500 abstracts were considered; the reviewers supply 52 statements scored by two recognised systems for appraising the weight of evidence, and formulate 22 recommendations based finally on data from 223 studies. Some of …
