Building-related symptoms and inflammatory potency of dust from office buildings

Leila Allermann, Jan Pejtersen, Lars Bo Gunnarsen, Otto Melchior Poulsen

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Abstract The aim was to investigate the association between building-related

symptoms (BRS) in office buildings and the inflammatory potency of dust (PD).

Furthermore, the association between dust potency and various building characteristics

was investigated. Occupants of 22 office buildings received a retrospective

questionnaire about BRS (2301 respondents). Dust was collected from

groups of offices and building characteristics were recorded. The potency of a

dust sample to induce interleukin-8 (IL-8) secretion from the lung epithelial cell

line A549 was measured as the slope of the initial linear part of the concentration-

response curve. Symptoms of the central nervous system (CNS) were

associated with the potency of surface dust (OR ¼ 1.4). This association may be

due to an association between an index of CNS symptoms and dust potency in

offices of 1-6 occupants (OR ¼ 1.5). No single symptoms correlated with the

potency of surface dust. The PD was not related to single building factors. The

inflammatory PD may be used as an integrated proxy measure of biologically

active compounds in dust, reflecting health relevant properties of the dust.

Original languageEnglish
JournalIndoor Air
Volume17
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)458-467
Number of pages9
ISSN0905-6947
Publication statusPublished - 2007

Keywords

  • inflammation
  • indoor air
  • dust
  • office buildings

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