THE NATIONAL Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) says coal mine dust exposure is a significant predictor of emphysema severity.
NIOSH Dr Kuempel and colleagues compared lung autopsy results from 722 individuals, including 616 coal miners from West Virginia and 106 non-miners from West Virginia and Vermont.
The researchers found that cumulative exposure to respirable coal mine dust was a highly significant predictor of emphysema severity after accounting for cigarette smoking, age at death, and race.
Miners tended to be older at death than non-miners due to a higher proportion of accidental or other sudden deaths among the non-miners. Miners also smoked less on average, though differences were nonsignificant.
However, emphysema in miners was significantly more severe than in non-miners among both smokers and never-smokers.
Unsurprisingly, emphysema was also more severe among smokers than never smokers in both miners and non-miners.
Coal mine dust exposure and cigarette smoking had similar, additive effects on emphysema severity in this study.
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