The biologic mechanisms involved in airway inflammatory response to air pollution are not clearly understood.The authors conducted a longitudinal study to investigate whether exposure to ambient air pollutants affectedinflammatory cells and mediators from nasal lavage in schoolchildren. Study participants were 100 elementary andmiddle-school students in New Taipei City, Taiwan. A structured respiratory health questionnaire was administeredin September 2007, followed by monthly measurement of nasal inflammation from October 2007 to November2009. During the study period, daily concentrations of air pollutants were obtained from the Environmental ProtectionAdministration monitoring station and the Aerosol Supersite. Mixed-effects models were applied to examine theassociation between air pollution and nasal inflammatory cells and mediators, including percentages of neutrophils,eosinophils, and monocytes in lavaged cells and interleukin-8. A total of 824 measurements were obtained from100 participants over a period of 10 months. The level of particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of2.5 lm or less (PM 2.5 ) was found to be associated with percentage of neutrophils (b ¼ 3.45%, 95% confidenceinterval: 0.89, 6.01) and interleukin-8 level (b ¼ 29.98 pg/mL, 95% confidence interval: 3.26, 56.69) in the nasallavage on the day of exposure. In this longitudinal cohort study of schoolchildren, results indicated that exposureto PM 2.5 might induce nasal inflammation.
Date:
2012-04
Relation:
American Journal of Epidemiology. 2012 Apr;175(8):764-774.
