Iraqi Postgraduate Medical Journal

Abstract

ABSTRACT :
BACKGROUND:
Byssinosis is a disease caused by long exposure to cotton, hamp, and flax dust, it differs from occupational
asthma, it needs along period of exposure to develop and the worker gets adaptation on subsequent days after
Monday chest tightness. The over all prevalence of byssinosis was 22.4%.Byssinosis needs at least 10 years to develop,
the prevalence and severity increased with increasing duration of exposure to cotton dust. processing of cotton is
more harmful to lungs, and this is due probably to high dust concentration, or the dust contains toxins
and other organic substances which decrease in later manipulations.
OBJECTIVE :
To find out the prevalence of byssinosis among textile factory workers in mousel.
To through alight on the relationship between smoking and byssinosis among workers exposed to
cotton wool dust. the relationship between duration of working in a textile factory and occurrence
of byssinosis
PATIENT AND METHOD:
Two hundred and fifty Mosul Textile factory male workers , occupationally exposed to cotton
dust, aged (22-65) years were randomly selected and were interviewed to get information about
age, work duration, smoking habit, and about chronic cough, phlegm, wheeze and chest tightness,
and workers were examined clinically, and special considerations attended to the chest. The
workers involved in this study were in good health at the time of engagement to this work, and any
worker with bronchial asthma, or other chest diseases were excluded. by history .Peaked
expiratory flow (PEF) was carried out for all 250 workers by Right's Peak flow meter
(W18416.Harlow, England).
RESULT AND DISCUSSION:
All of the workers were male their age ranged 22-65 years with mean age of 45.3 years, in those
between 31-40 years the incidence was 10.8%, this increased to 49.3% in those whose age was
over 51 years. The mean work duration was 18.2 years, ranged (2-44) years. The prevalence was
12.6% in age groups 10-19 year work duration, 47.2% in 20-29 years, and 49.2% in those over 30
year work duration. In age group 10-19 years work duration moderate cases of byssinosis was
4.7% and no any sever case and mean PEF 106%, while in age group over 30 year work duration
there was 33.3% moderate and 7.9% sever cases of byssinosis and mean PEF 94.9%.increased
prevalence and severity of byssinosis in sections where the dust concentration was high. In the
weaving room 12%, were byssinotic, where the dust concentration was lowest, 25%, in spinning
room where the dust concentration was higher, while in ginning room where the dust concentration
is highest the prevalence was 41.8%. .
CONCLUSION:
We have shown that the prevalence of byssinosis is still high in MousalTexitle factory- Iraq. It is
statistically estimated that the prevalence of byssinosis after 8 years will be 35.2%, the reason for
this may be attributed to bad occupational safety measures..