EFFECTS ON NASAL MUCOSA DURING EXPERIMENTAL EXPOSURE TO MIXTURES OF ALDEHYDES AND ALCOHOLS -A CLIMATE CHAMBER STUDY ON HUMANS

摘要

In the climate chamber study performed under well controlled conditions two groups of healthy, non-smoking, non-allergic persons, drafted from the public register of the city of Aarhus, participated. One study group consisted of persons hypo-reactive and one of persons hyper-reactive nasal sensitivity to histamine. The study on aldehydes comprised n-hexanal, n-nonanal and n-decanal and the concentrations were measured both continuously by a flame ionisation detector and integrated by sampling on Tenax. In the alcohol study the mixture consisted of n- butanol, 2-ethylhexanol and benzyl alcohol. Total expected concentrations for both the aldehyde and the alcohol study were 0 μg/m~3, 50 μg/m~3 and 300 μg/m~3. Also a mixture of 22 VOCs at a concentration of 10 000 μg/m~3 was tested. The tests were arranged in a Latin-square design. In short term experiments neither the aldehyde mixture nor the alcohol mixture did cause any significant swelling of nasal mucosa.