Published: Wednesday, August 2, 2006
WTC responders lungs' injured by inhaled dust
A study shows they could expect 12 years' worth of lung decline in one year.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
New York City firefighters and other first-responders exposed to the dust of the collapsed World Trade Center had a lung-function decline equal to 12 years' aging in the year after the terrorist attack, researchers reported Tuesday.
Dr. Gisela Banauch, a lung specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, worked with colleagues to analyze lung-function test results from more that 12,000 New York Fire Department rescue workers, most of whom were at Ground Zero after the towers collapsed.
Among this group were 83 percent of those workers eligible for a lung-function screening program the department began in 1997 and continued after the disaster. Some 11,500 fire personnel and 2,500 emergency medical workers were at the site within the first week following Sept. 11, 2001.
The researchers divided the responders into groups according to when they first arrived on the scene — from the morning of the attacks to those who arrived on or after the third day after the assaults.
"The percentage of FDNY rescue workers with lung-function-test measurements below the lower limit of normal increased by at least twofold within each exposure group from before to after 9/11," Banauch said.
The key measure was the amount of air a rescue worker could expel from the lungs in a single exhale. Compared with functional levels measured five years before 9/11, the average emergency worker on the scene showed a lung-capacity decline in the year after the attack equal to that expected over 12 years of normal aging.
Also
But the report, published in the August issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, also found that workers exposed to dust from pulverized building materials and smoke in the first hours and days after the collapse had significantly more frequent and more severe respiratory symptoms than those who arrived later.
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
A study shows they could expect 12 years' worth of lung decline in one year.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
New York City firefighters and other first-responders exposed to the dust of the collapsed World Trade Center had a lung-function decline equal to 12 years' aging in the year after the terrorist attack, researchers reported Tuesday.
Dr. Gisela Banauch, a lung specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, worked with colleagues to analyze lung-function test results from more that 12,000 New York Fire Department rescue workers, most of whom were at Ground Zero after the towers collapsed.
Among this group were 83 percent of those workers eligible for a lung-function screening program the department began in 1997 and continued after the disaster. Some 11,500 fire personnel and 2,500 emergency medical workers were at the site within the first week following Sept. 11, 2001.
The researchers divided the responders into groups according to when they first arrived on the scene — from the morning of the attacks to those who arrived on or after the third day after the assaults.
"The percentage of FDNY rescue workers with lung-function-test measurements below the lower limit of normal increased by at least twofold within each exposure group from before to after 9/11," Banauch said.
The key measure was the amount of air a rescue worker could expel from the lungs in a single exhale. Compared with functional levels measured five years before 9/11, the average emergency worker on the scene showed a lung-capacity decline in the year after the attack equal to that expected over 12 years of normal aging.
Also
But the report, published in the August issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, also found that workers exposed to dust from pulverized building materials and smoke in the first hours and days after the collapse had significantly more frequent and more severe respiratory symptoms than those who arrived later.
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
from the morning of the attacks to those who arrived on or after the third day after the assaults.
"The percentage of...
More Stories from Sat, Aug 5, 2006
