What is byssinosis?

Byssinosis is a disease of the lungs. It is caused by breathing in cotton dust or dusts from other vegetable fibers such as flax, hemp, or sisal while at work.

What is the cause of byssinosis?

Byssinosis is a lung disease caused by job-related exposure to dust from cotton, hemp, or flax. These dusts cause lung disease by obstructing the small air tubes (called bronchioles). Byssinosis can cause symptoms like asthma or more permanent lung damage similar to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Is byssinosis restrictive or obstructive?

Persons with mild byssinosis have a “Monday feeling” of chest tightness and shortness of breath on the first day of work after a weekend or holiday. As exposure continues, this feeling persists throughout the week, and in advanced stages, byssinosis causes chronic, irreversible obstructive lung disease.

How do you diagnose byssinosis?

Diagnosing Byssinosis To diagnose byssinosis, your doctor will ask you about recent activities and your work to determine if you’ve been in contact with textile dust. Your doctor will probably perform a physical exam to check your lungs and may order a chest X-ray and CT scan of your lungs.

Who are mostly affected with Byssinosis?

People who open bales of raw cotton or who work in the first stages of cotton processing seem to be most affected. Although people can be affected after working with cotton for a short time, most people do not develop the disease until they have been exposed for 10 years or longer.

Which organ is affected by silicosis?

How Silicosis affects your body. Silicosis affects the lungs by damaging the lining of the lung’s air sacs, called alveoli. This damage leads to scarring and, in some situations, stiffening of the lung, which makes it difficult to breathe.

What is Caplan syndrome?

Rheumatoid pneumoconiosis (RP, also known as Caplan syndrome) is swelling (inflammation) and scarring of the lungs. It occurs in people with rheumatoid arthritis who have breathed in dust, such as from coal (coal worker’s pneumoconiosis) or silica.

When was the first case of byssinosis diagnosed?

Byssinosis was first recognized in the 17th century and was widely known in Europe and England by the early 19th century; today it is seen in most cotton-producing regions of the world. Several years of exposure to cotton dust are needed before byssinosis develops, and workers with lower grade disease usually recover completely…

What does byssinosis stand for in medical terms?

Over the years, byssinosis has been referred to as cotton worker’s lung, brown lungdisease,Monday fever,and mill fever. In 1978, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published a mandatory standard regarding exposure to cotton dust in the workplace which both improved both the detection and prevention of byssinosis.

How is byssinosis related to the cotton industry?

Byssinosis is a further form of occupational asthma,402 one encountered in the cotton industry. The sensitising agent is a component of the cotton bract, which is the part of the cotton harvest other than the cotton fibre.

Where does byssinosis occur in the United States?

In the United States, from 1996 to 2005, North Carolina accounted for about 37% of all deaths caused by byssinosis, with 31, followed by South Carolina (8) and Georgia (7). The term “brown lung” is a misnomer, as the lungs of affected individuals are not brown.