Spirometric Measurements in Al-Diwaniya Brick Factory Employees

MH. Al-Shamma, Yesar; M.H. Zwain, Basim; Al- Naili, Farhan

	Spirometric Measurements in Al-Diwaniya Brick Factory Employees
Medical Journal of Babylon
Article 1, Volume 3, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 207-212
Authors
Yesar MH. Al-Shamma; Basim M.H. Zwain; Farhan Al- Naili
Abstract
Spirometric measurements including forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in first second (FEV1 ), forced expiratory volume ratio (FEV%) and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) were done for 83 males. Their ages ranged from 20 to 47 years (mean 36.06 ± 9.2 years). Their average height was 171.91 ± 5.47 cm. Some of them were employees in an old brick factory in Al-Diwaniya Governorate (n = 53) who were classified into three groups according to severity of exposure to occupational dusts and fumes which were: first group or 1st (n = 26) including workers with severe exposure, second group or 2nd (n = 15) including employees with moderate exposure and third group or 3rd (n = 12) including employees with mild exposure. The others were healthy subjects randomly selected from the general population of Al-Diwaniya City to be regarded as control group (n = 30). There were no significant differences in age and height among the four study groups. FVC, FEV1 and PEFR were significantly lower in 1st group than in the other three study groups (p< 0.001) while FEV% was significantly higher in the first group than in the other three groups (p<0.001). FEV% was also significantly higher in the second group than in control group (p<0.001). No other significant differences were observed. It is concluded that workers in continuous close contact with the occupational dusts and fumes of an old brick factory were having mixed restrictive and obstructive patterns of abnormal spirometric measurements.

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