| Chronic Beryllium Disease and Sensitization at a Beryllium Processing Facility Kenneth Rosenman,1 Vicki Hertzberg,2 Carol Rice,3 Mary
Jo Reilly,1 Judith Aronchick,4 John E. Parker,5 Jackie
Regovich,4 and Milton Rossman4 1Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA; 2Emory
University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; 3University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati,
Ohio, USA; 4University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
USA; 5West Virginia University, Morgantown,
West Virginia, USA Abstract
We conducted a medical screening for beryllium disease of 577 former workers from a beryllium processing facility. The screening included a medical and work history questionnaire, a chest radiograph, and blood lymphocyte proliferation testing for beryllium. A task exposure and a job exposure matrix were constructed to examine the association between exposure to beryllium and the development of beryllium disease. More than 90% of the cohort completed the questionnaire, and 74% completed the blood and radiograph component of the screening. Forty-four (7.6%) individuals had definite or probable chronic beryllium disease (CBD) , and another 40 (7.0%) were sensitized to beryllium. The prevalence of CBD and sensitization in our cohort was greater than the prevalence reported in studies of other beryllium-exposed cohorts. Various exposure measures evaluated included duration ; first decade worked ; last decade worked ; cumulative, mean, and highest job ; and highest task exposure to beryllium (to both soluble and nonsoluble forms) . Soluble cumulative and mean exposure levels were lower in individuals with CBD. Sensitized individuals had shorter duration of exposure, began work later, last worked longer ago, and had lower cumulative and peak exposures and lower nonsoluble cumulative and mean exposures. A possible explanation for the exposure-response findings of our study may be an interaction between genetic predisposition and a decreased permanence of soluble beryllium in the body. Both CBD and sensitization occurred in former workers whose mean daily working lifetime average exposures were lower than the current allowable Occupational Safety and Health Administration workplace air level of 2 µg/m3 and the Department of Energy guideline of 0.2 µg/m3. Key words: beryllium, chronic beryllium disease, epidemiology, exposure-response, lymphocyte proliferation testing. Environ Health Perspect 113:1366-1372 (2005) . doi:10.1289/ehp.7845 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 26 May 2005]
Address correspondence to K. Rosenman, Michigan State University, 117 West Fee Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824-1316 USA. Telephone: (517) 353-1846. Fax: (517) 432-3606. E-mail: Rosenman@msu.edu We acknowledge the dedicated, extensive work of T. Carey, A. Krizek, C. Vsetula, and C. Zamba in the identification, contacting, scheduling, and tracking of the medical screening participants ; we thank R. Swank and B. Toth for their expert phlebotomy assistance in this project ; and, most important, we thank the screening participants for their invaluable support. This study was funded by grants from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (U60/CCU512218) and the Department of Energy (DE-FG03-98EH98027) and was supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service research grant M01RR00040 from the National Institutes of Health. M.R. reported competing financial interests: He has provided expert testimony for law firms representing companies and workers ; he performs clinical evaluation of patients with chronic beryllium disease ; and he is the director of the beryllium lymphocyte proliferation testing laboratory. The other authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 13 December 2004 ; accepted 26 May 2005. An erratum was published in Environ Health Perspect 114:A214 (2006) . The full version of this article is available for free in HTML or PDF formats. |
