Active clinical trials for "Asthma, Occupational"

Workers in the salmon industry are at risk of developing allergies and respiratory diseases, including asthma, due to occupational exposure to bioaerosols, i.e. biological agents such as allergens, enzymes and endotoxins, in their work environment. The overall objective of this intervention trial is to identify effective and feasible control measures (interventions) that reduce exposure to these bioaerosols. The project comprises nine salmon processing factories in northern, central and western Norway. The factories are allocated to either one of the two intervention arms or the control group. In all factories, an assessment of exposure to bioaerosols will be performed. In addition, employees will be invited to undergo a health examination and fill out a self-administered questionnaire including information on demographics, work tasks, health and health promoting factors. The intervention trial is part of a broader study that comprises several substudies including the identification of clinically relevant allergens, investigation of exposure-response relationship between the exposure to individual bioactive agents in bioaerosols and investigations of prevalence of airway symptoms, altered lung function, skin symptoms or immunological responses indicating hypersensitivity. Finally the project includes the identification of health promoting factors that are present in the salmon processing industry. The project is an interdisciplinary multi-center study that places great emphasis on a close dialogue between the researchers and industry in all phases of the project.

The project aims to increase the diagnostic accuracy in occupational asthma (OA), with emphasis on Irritant Induced Asthma (IIA). Currently, most patients are evaluated in occupational medicine by comparing the exposure and symptom characteristics with epidemiological data. Biological markers may be present in AA, but presently not in IIA. The majority of cases evaluated are considered as possible IIA, i.e. low-dose multiple exposures. VOC features will be analyzed with the Breath Biopsy® and TD-GS-MS (Owlstone Medical Ltd, UK).

Occupational asthma (OA) caused by high molecular weight (HMW) substances have been shown to induce predominantly an eosinophilic inflammation. In contrast, OA caused by low molecular weight (LMW) substances results in a neutrophilic inflammation. In addition, data regarding phenotype of lymphocytes in OA caused by HMW and LMW substances are scarce. The use of a new equipment will allow the realization of specific standardized bronchial challenges (BC) to occupational agents. Thus, we propose to study in more detail the cellular mechanisms involved during BC to HMW and LMW occupational agents in a double-blind placebo controlled study.

This project will be test the effect of probiotics on occupational allergic sensitization, respiratory symptoms and bronchial hyperresponsiveness in workers or students that develop respiratory symptoms exposed to laboratory animals, i.e., small rodents.

There are consistent evidences through epidemiologic studies in different places, reinforced by occupational asthma records studies, that cleaning workers have a high risk in developing asthma. These risk determinants are not totally known. The air around the worker may have some higher and lower molecular weight with different concentration peaks from removed dust of the cleaning process and volatile substances from cleaning products. Cleaning activities may occur in different places. Although the relationship between rhinitis and asthma is already established, there are not many studies about occupational rhinitis-related work place. This study aimed to investigate airway inflammation and respiratory symptoms of cleaning workers from different workplaces.

Background: Occupational exposures are thought to be responsible for 10-15% of new-onset asthma cases in adults, with disparities across sectors. Because most of the data are derived from registries and cross-sectional studies, little is known about incidence of occupational asthma (OA) during the first years after inception of exposure. This study focuses on this early asthma onset period among young workers in the bakery, pastry making and hairdressing sectors in order to assess early incidence of OA in these "at risk" occupations according to exposure duration, and to identify risk factors of OA. Methods: This study is a longitudinal retrospective study with a nested case-control to identify risk factors of OA. The assessment of incidence evolution is made by exploring a series of promotions (or retrospective cohorts) with increasing duration since at work. The study population is composed of subjects who graduated between 2001 and 2006 in sectors where they experience exposure to organic or inorganic allergenic or irritant compounds (with an objective of 150 subjects by year) and 250 young workers with no specific occupational exposure. This study is a descriptive, monocentric, longitudinal and retrospective study with cross-sectional measurements.

The general objective of this multicenter, international study is to perform a multivariate descriptive analysis of a large population of well-defined subjects with sensitizer-induced OA ascertained by a positive SIC result in order to provide more information on the characteristics of this condition.