PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 6481501

Development of a standardized pulmonary function evaluation program in industry.

M C Townsend·H D Belk
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

In industries where there are occupational exposures to dusts, fumes, and gases, employers should monitor periodically their employees' respiratory health, using both spirometric pulmonary function tests and respiratory symptoms questionnaires. To incorporate the recent American Thoracic Society recommendations of standardization in these areas into an industrial pulmonary function evaluation program, a three-day standardized pulmonary function evaluation course was developed by a respiratory epidemiologist with extensive spirometry experience and was offered to many of Alcoa's domestic plant medical departments. The course included spirometric pulmonary function testing and use of the ATS-DLD-78A respiratory symptoms questionnaire. The major points covered in the course, the quality control follow-up of the course, and the need for such a standardized pulmonary function evaluation program in a large company are described in this report.

Explore related subjects

CalibrationData CollectionHumansOccupational MedicineRespiratory Function TestsSpirometrySurveys and QuestionnairesJournal Article

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

M C Townsend, H D Belk. 1984. Development of a standardized pulmonary function evaluation program in industry.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6481501/

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed1996

Predictive diagnostics for logistic models.

Novel methodology is implemented to assess the predictive power of covariate information associated with sequential binary events. Logistic models are first fitted on the basis of a subset of the observations and then evaluated sequentially on the rest. The probabilistic forecasts are compared to the outcomes via a scoring function, but as most validation samples are small, the usual reference distribution for the test statistics is inadequate. However, bootstrap-based distributions can easily be constructed. The first example pertains to the evaluation of screening tests for major depression. It illustrates that goodness-of-fit and predictive assessments lead to the selection of very different models. The second example deals with the prediction of a major event in the natural history of HIV-induced disease. It shows that this type of analysis can reveal features missed by other approaches.

Calibration↗
PubMed1996

Direct analysis of mannitol, lactulose and glucose in urine samples by high-performance anion-exchange chromatography with pulse amperometric detection. Clinical evaluation of intestinal permeability in human immunodeficiency virus infection.

Clinically, the ratio of lactulose/mannitol excretion in urine after administration of these non-metabolized sugars has been used to evaluate the extent of malabsorption and intestinal permeability disruption in several infections and nutritional diseases, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. A range of methodologies have been reported to determine the lactulose/mannitol ratio, including enzymatic assay, gas-liquid chromatography (GC), thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Most published methods involve tedious sample preparations, rendering them unsuitable for routine or automated clinical laboratory testing. We describe in this paper a method in which weak anion-exchange high-performance liquid chromatography in conjunction with a pulsed amperometric detector was used. It requires very simple sample preparation and avoids interference by other components present in the urine. The linear range of determination for mannitol, lactulose and glucose are up to 10 nmol, in a single injection. The limits of detection are 8, 12, 47 and 52 pmol, respectively, for mannitol, glucose, lactose and lactulose. The separation and quantification using this method are highly reproducible, yielding standard errors of less than 2.5% for retention times and less than 3.5% for quantitation. The ratios of lactulose/mannitol recovery in controls and in HIV-infected subjects with and without diarrhea showed striking differences, which are in close agreement with the published results derived with similar HPLC methods.

Calibration↗
PubMed1996

Ultratrace determination of lead in whole blood using electrothermal atomization laser-excited atomic fluorescence spectrometry.

Laser-excited atomic fluorescence has been used to detect lead that was electrothermally atomized from whole blood in a graphite furnace. A 9 kHz repetition rate copper vapor laser pumped dye laser was used to excite the lead at 283.3 nm, and the resulting atomic fluorescence was detected at 405.8 nm. No matrix modification was used other than a 1:21 dilution of the whole blood with high-purity water. Using the atomic fluorescence peak area as the analytical measure and a background correction technique based upon a simultaneous measurement of the transmitted laser intensity, excellent agreement for NIST and CDC certified whole blood reference samples was obtained with aqueous standards. A limit of detection in blood of 10 fg/mL (100 ag absolute) was achieved.

Calibration↗