Abstract
Japanese cedar pollinosis (JCP) is an important illness caused by the inhalation of airborne allergenic cedar pollens, which are dispersed in the early spring throughout the Japanese islands. However, associations between pollen exposures and the prevalence or severity of allergic symptoms are largely unknown, due to a lack of understanding regarding personal pollen exposures in relation to indoor and outdoor concentrations. This study aims to examine the relationships among indoor, outdoor, and personal airborne Japanese cedar pollen counts. We conducted a 4-year monitoring campaign to quantify indoor, outdoor, and personal airborne cedar pollen counts, where the personal passive settling sampler that has been previously validated against a volumetric sampler was used to count airborne pollen grains. A total of 256 sets of indoor, outdoor, and personal samples (768 samples) were collected from 9 subjects. Medians of the seasonally-integrated indoor-to-outdoor, personal-to-outdoor, and personal-to-indoor ratios of airborne pollen counts measured for 9 subjects were 0.08, 0.10, and 1.19, respectively. A greater correlation was observed between the personal and indoor counts (r = 0.89) than between the personal and outdoor counts (r = 0.71), suggesting a potential inaccuracy in the use of outdoor counts as a basis for estimating personal exposures. The personal pollen counts differed substantially among the human subjects (49% geometric coefficient of variation), in part due to the variability in the indoor counts that have been found as major determinants of the personal pollen counts. The findings of this study highlight the need for pollen monitoring in proximity to human subjects to better understand the relationships between pollen exposures and the prevalence or severity of pollen allergy.
Highlights
Japanese cedar pollinosis (JCP) is known to be a “national affliction” due to its high prevalence among the population and the economic and social implications caused by the disease [1]
Japanese cedar pollinosis (JCP) is an important illness caused by the inhalation of airborne allergenic cedar pollens, which are dispersed in the early spring throughout the Japanese islands
A strong correlation was found between the two methods (r = 0.84, linear regression through the origin), suggesting that personal aeroallergen sampler (PAAS) is comparable with the KH-3000 to quantify airborne pollen counts with sufficient accuracy
Summary
Japanese cedar pollinosis (JCP) is known to be a “national affliction” due to its high prevalence among the population and the economic and social implications caused by the disease [1]. Outdoor, and Personal Airborne Japanese Cedar Pollen Counts is caused by the inhalation of allergenic Cryptomeria japonica Ex L.f.) D.Don (Japanese cedar) pollen grains, which are dispersed in the early spring throughout the Japanese islands [2, 3]. The trees started to release large quantities of pollens into the atmosphere, to which many individuals within the population became sensitized. According to a survey conducted in 2006–2007, 56% of the population was sensitized to C. japonica antigens, with a 37% prevalence of JCP symptoms [4]. The accurate monitoring of airborne pollens is crucial from the perspective of allergen avoidance or exposure assessments
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