Abstract
Background: Respiratory tract symptoms are associated with workplace moisture damage (MD). The focus of this observational clinical study was patients with workplace MD-associated symptoms, to evaluate the usefulness of different clinical tests in diagnostics in secondary healthcare with a special interest in improving the differential diagnostics between asthma and laryngeal dysfunction. Methods: In patients referred because of workplace MD-associated respiratory tract symptoms, we sought to systematically assess a wide variety of clinical findings. Results: New-onset asthma was diagnosed in 30% of the study patients. Laryngeal dysfunction was found in 28% and organic laryngeal changes in 22% of the patients, and these were common among patients both with and without asthma. Most of the patients (85%) reported a runny or stuffy nose, and 11% of them had chronic rhinosinusitis. Atopy was equally as common as in the general population. Conclusions: As laryngeal changes were rather common, we recommend proper differential diagnostics with lung function testing and investigations of the larynx and its functioning, when necessary, in cases of prolonged workplace MD-associated symptoms. Chronic rhinosinusitis among these patients was not uncommon. Based on this study, allergy testing should not play a major role in the examination of these patients.
Highlights
Building moisture damage (MD) exposure-associated health effects have been a particular object of research since the 1990s
To reach a sample size of 100 patients, we interviewed 148 patients between October 2015 and June 2017. The reasons for their referral to secondary healthcare were a suspicion of workplace MD-associated asthma or difficult symptoms associated with workplace MD
Atopy was common among the patients as in the general population, and there were no differences in sensitization to common allergens or MD exposure-associated fungi among the asthma patients compared to among the non-asthmatics
Summary
Building moisture damage (MD) exposure-associated health effects have been a particular object of research since the 1990s. Epidemiological studies have previously observed that indoor MD exposure is associated with respiratory health effects such as upper respiratory tract symptoms, the development of asthma and asthma deterioration [1,2,3]. These studies have mainly focused on children’s risk of asthma, other respiratory tract symptoms, and MD exposure at home or in schools [4,5,6,7,8], but some previous research has established a temporal relationship between workplace MD exposure, asthma [9,10,11,12]. No studies on workplace MD exposure being associated with laryngeal dysfunction exist
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