Chest
Volume 109, Issue 3, March 1996, Pages 837-842
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Selected Reports
Three Cases of Dental Technician's Pneumoconiosis Related to Cobalt-Chromium-Molybdenum Dust Exposure: Diagnosis and Follow-up

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Dental technician's pneumoconiosis (DTP) is a rather recent finding in subjects exposed to the dust generated in dental laboratories producing metal-framed removable partial dentures from alloys based on cobalt, chromium, and molybdenum. This study presents details of the first three Swedish cases of DTP with some emphasis on the diagnostic procedures and the dust exposure. A follow-up of at least 5 years from diagnosis is included.

Section snippets

Case 1

This 50-year-old man (the index case) had worked in various dental laboratories for 30 years and was a regular smoker of 20 cigarettes a day over this period. After 5 years as an apprentice in mechanical dentistry, he worked for 3 years at a storage house and 2 years as an excavator driver in a commercial sandpit. Returning to his profession in 1962, he worked almost exclusively with the manufacture of metal-framed removable partial dentures in CoCrMo alloys until 1985. For the last 13 years of

Discussion

Dental technicians are exposed to a complex mixture of dust particles defined by the type of materials involved. Sporadically, fibrotic lung disease in dental laboratories has been associated with exposure to organic dust,18, 19 but the present concept of dental technician's pneumoconiosis (DTP) is largely confined to the inorganic dust emitted in the production of metal-framed removable partial dentures based on CoCrMo alloys. Several formulas with small variations are available on the market.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All colleagues who participated in the clinical evaluation of these cases are gratefully acknowledged. Mrs. Margaretha Sandin helped to produce this report.

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    Presented in part at the 23rd International Congress on Occupational Health, Montreal, 1990.

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