engleski

Industrial Emissions as Risk Factors for Respiratory and Allergic Effects

Although the association between COPD and urban air pollution is well established, the relationship between COPD and BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, isomeric xylenes) exhaust particles has not been investigated. Urban air pollution is a grave problem in majority of metropolises, which contain high levels of traffic congestion generating great amounts of genotoxic substances. The contribution of such environmental exposure to develop COPD is marked. The objectives of this study was to determine the health impacts of these industrial pollutants which were assessed with spyrometric dynamic and static tests of inhabitants living in industrial areas, compared with those living in rural ones. People living in urban industrial fields have significantly decreased values of PIF (inspiratory peak flow), FIVC (inspiratory forced vital capacity), FIV1 (volume inspired in the first second of the test) and FVC (forced vital capacity) and significantly increased the concentration of o-ksilen, benzene, toluene and etilbenzene. The findings were analyzed using computer programs Microsoft Excel and Statistica 7.1. We were found that significantly increased BTEX values were associated with the altered spyrometry's findings in inhabitants from urban areas, suggesting the great role of industrial emission on COPD and point to the possible predictive role of BTEX measuring in these subjects.

BTEX ; COPD ; spirometry testings

nije evidentirano