TY - JOUR T1 - Deterioration of lung function is perturbed by sputum neutrophilia and lung cell DNA damage among occupationally cadmium-exposed Indian goldsmiths JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 44 IS - Suppl 58 SP - P1103 AU - Kaustav Chakraborty AU - Subhabrata Moitra AU - Arindam Bhattacharyya AU - Subhashis Sahu Y1 - 2014/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P1103.abstract N2 - Background: Cadmium is frequently used in manual jewellery industries in India. Although it imparts significant damage to the lungs, the mechanism is not well-understood.Methods: Among 26 exposed workers actively engaged in jewellery manufacturing work (mean age 35.9±5.0 years) and 17 unexposed workers without direct exposure (mean age 36.6±6.6 years), we measured urinary and blood cadmium, performed spirometry and quantified inflammatory cellular profile and DNA damage of the cells from spontaneously expectorated sputum samples.Results: The exposed workers had 20 times higher cadmium concentration in urine (geometric mean 3.39±0.77 vs. 0.17±0.03 µg/g creatinine; p<0.001) and 40 times higher in blood (geometric mean 0.87±0.23 vs. 0.02±0.007 µg/100ml; p<0.001) than the unexposed. Both urinary and blood cadmium showed inverse correlation with FEV1/FVC (r= -0.45 for both, p<0.001). There was a marked elevation of neutrophils (0.67±0.24 vs. 1.42±0.49 million) in the expectorated sputum samples of the exposed workers than the unexposed. DNA damage in sputum cells was nearly 5 times higher among the exposed group compared to the unexposed (69 vs. 14%) and the amount of DNA breakdown was also found higher among the exposed workers (115 vs. 27 arbitrary unit; p<0.01) showing strong cadmium exposure-response.Conclusion: The Indian goldsmiths acquire high cadmium body burden due to chronic inhalation of cadmium fumes. This cadmium body burden induces neutrophil infiltration in the alveolar bed and also causes significant DNA damage of the alveolar cells, which in milieu attribute to lung function decrement and facilitate airway obstruction. ER -