Abstract
This study aims to investigate rice open field burning and their deleterious effects which has become an obvious problem in Egypt, which apparently affects the Egyptians´ lungs and increased hospital admission for pulmonary complaints. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate this phenomenon by using guinea pigs which were subjected to rice straws burning products (RSBP). The effects of RSBP on differential leukocytic count in lung lavages, histopathological examination, malondialdehyde (MDA) content in lung tissues (marker of lipid peroxidation) and nitric oxide (NO) content in lung tissues were studied. Results of this study demonstrated that RSBP induced pulmonary emphysematous lesions are progressive with subsequent smoke exposures together with the sensitization of the lung in the present model. Changes in the count of macrophages, neutrophils and eosinophils in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) of guinea pigs lungs compared to normal lavages. RSBP exposure has a potent potential capacity for being a source of reactive oxygen species and possibly oxidizing species which can lead to decrease nitric oxide content in lung tissue. Key words: Rice straws smoke guinea pigs total leukocytic count Neutrophil and Eosinophils count macrophages count nitric oxide content malondialdehyde content lung histopathological examination.
Highlights
Over the last few years, Egyptian farmers in the middle delta tend to burn the rice straw in the rice field as an easy and cheap method for its disposal
One of the major pollutants emitted from the field burning of rice straws, are of major concern due to their harmful effects on human health (Pope et al, 2009)
Crop rice burning is a serious environmental health hazard, and children are more sensitive to air pollution, as rice straws burning products (RSBP) poses some unrecoverable influence on their pulmonary function test (PFT) (Awasthi et al, 2010), early small airway obstruction (Ravinder et al, 2012)
Summary
Over the last few years, Egyptian farmers in the middle delta tend to burn the rice straw in the rice field as an easy and cheap method for its disposal. Agricultural field burning activities are linked to elevated air pollution levels in Asia, for example, Taiwan (Yang et al, 2006), Thailand (Tipayarom et al, 2007), USA (Jiminez et al, 2007) and Europe (Viana et al, 2008). The patients themselves are aware that rice smokes aggravate their airway symptoms after the harvesting season (from September to November) every year. This can result in adverse health effects (Regalado et al, 2006; Yang et al, 2007; Ryu et al, 2007)
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