Head and neck cancers account for an estimated 549,000 global cancer diagnoses each year. While tobacco use, alcohol consumption, and HPV16 infection are considered to be the major risk factors for this disease, occupational risk factors, including exposure to asbestos, have also been described, although dust exposures other than asbestos have been historically understudied. We have investigate...

In general, control of metal dust from hand-held disk grinders is difficult because such respirable dust tends to disperse in every direction around the grinding wheel and cannot be captured effectively by a conventional exhaust hood. The author described the application of a custom-made tool-mounted local exhaust ventilation (LEV) system attached to a hand-held disk grinder, and by laboratory ...

Fugitive dust from 18 unsurfaced roadways in Missouri were sampled using a novel cyclonic fugitive dust collector that was designed to obtain suspended bulk samples for analysis. The samples were analyzed for trace metals, Fe and Al, particle sizes, and mineralogy to characterize the similarities and differences between roadways. Thirteen roads were located in the Viburnum Trend (VT) mining dis...

To investigate carcinogenic or cocarcinogenic properties, copper ore (Kinkaseki) and flue dust collected from a metal refinery and arsenic trioxide (As2O3) were administered into the lung of male Wistar-King rats by an intratracheal instillation method. No squamous cell carcinoma of the lung was found among the rats given three arsenical substances, while adenoma or adenocarcinoma was observed....

OBJECTIVES There are epidemiological studies indicating that exposure to metal fumes is a risk factor for infectious pneumonia. Whether occupational exposure to other agents, such as inorganic dust or chemicals, also increases the risk for infectious pneumonia is not clear. The aim of the present study was to elucidate whether occupational exposure to respiratory pollutants and irritants increa...

Data from the analysis of lung dust in 16 metal grinders who had been exposed to hard metals between five and 44 years is reported. The mean latent time between the first exposure and analysis in biopsy or necropsy specimens was 33.6 years. Mineralogical and elementary analysis by a variety of techniques showed small or trace amounts of hard metal in all lungs. Many specimens, however, did not ...

We present a study of the early build-up of dust in high redshift galaxies. The study is based on the analysis of 38 Damped Lyα systems (DLAs) for which we derive the fraction of iron atoms in dust form, fFe. The sample is representative of metal-poor galaxies in the redshift range 0.6 ≤ z ≤ 3.4 selected on the basis of their absorption H i column density (N(H i) ≥ 2 × 10 atoms cm). We find tha...

OBJECTIVES To study the mortality from lung cancer from exposures to hard metal dust at an industrial site producing hard metals--pseudoalloys of cobalt and tungsten carbide--and other metallurgical products many of which contain cobalt. METHODS A historical cohort was set up of all subjects who had worked for at least 3 months on the site since its opening date in the late 1940s. A full job ...

We present herein two cases of hard metal lung disease (HMLD) with distinct pathological findings. Both cases showed gradual improvements in pulmonary function over a period of a few years (Case 1: 30 months; Case 2: 12 months) after the avoidance of dust exposure, while improvements on high-resolution computed tomography were modest. The increased lymphocytes and decreased CD4/CD8 ratio in BAL...