Does photocopier toner fume or dust cause lung disease?

This is a longitudinal study of manufacturers and services of printing toners. The study is set up to look for interstitial disease, but is too short (mean 7.4 years) to show anything but the most gross pneumoconiosis. The hygiene measurements show that the servicers have higher exposures to toner dust than the manufacturers, and have more breathlessness and abnormal spirometry. Unfortunately there is no description of the content of the toner dust, asthmatic responses may account for some of the disease. The data on FEV1 decline is confounded by adjusting for age (which is likely to be highly correlated with cumulative exposure).

References

	Nakadate T, Yamano Y, Yamauchi T, Okubo S, Nagashima D, Assessing the chronic respiratory health risk associated with inhalation exposure to powdered toner for printing in actual working conditions: a cohort study on occupationally exposed workers over 10 years , BMJ Open, 2018;8:e022049,http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022049

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