1. How common are occupational lung diseases compared with asthma and smoking-related COPD?
About one in six cases of all adult onset asthma and COPD is due to work – a figure obtained by finding excess cases of asthma or COPD in workers exposed to known causes. Far fewer than this are identified by their doctors, but there will be patients with occupational asthma on every GP’s list.
Those at risk of occupational asthma include paint sprayers, bakers, pastry makers and food processing workers, nurses, cleaners, chemical workers, farmers and animal handlers, welders, electronics, plastics, metal, textile and timber workers.
Identifying occupational COPD is more difficult as your patient will not give a history of improvement away from work. The most commonly recognised agents include silica, coal, grain, cadmium and cotton. Paper mill workers are also particularly at risk, as are pig farmers. But there is evidence that any worker in a dusty job is at risk.
2. What factors might prompt GPs to suspect occupational asthma?
Pulse Key Questions
1. How common are occupational lung diseases compared with asthma and smoking-related COPD?
About one in six cases of all adult onset asthma and COPD is due to work – a figure obtained by finding excess cases of asthma or COPD in workers exposed to known causes. Far fewer than this are identified by their doctors, but there will be patients with occupational asthma on every GP’s list.
Those at risk of occupational asthma include paint sprayers, bakers, pastry makers and food processing workers, nurses, cleaners, chemical workers, farmers and animal handlers, welders, electronics, plastics, metal, textile and timber workers.
Identifying occupational COPD is more difficult as your patient will not give a history of improvement away from work. The most commonly recognised agents include silica, coal, grain, cadmium and cotton. Paper mill workers are also particularly at risk, as are pig farmers. But there is evidence that any worker in a dusty job is at risk.
2. What factors might prompt GPs to suspect occupational asthma?
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