A longitudinal study of respiratory health of toluene diisocyanate production workers

Abstract

A longitudinal comparison of 305 toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and 581 hydrocarbons workers employed at a Texas chemical manufacturing facility from 1971 through 1997 tested whether workplace exposure to TDI was associated with changes in any of the respiratory measures collected by the company's health surveillance program. Mean TDI exposures measured 96.9 ppb-months, or 2.3 ppb per job. At the end of the study, there were no differences in self-reported symptoms between the groups. Longitudinal analyses of symptoms and pulmonary function showed no correlation with TDI exposure, yielding an average annual decrease in forced expiratory volume at 1 second of 30 mL per year. We concluded that exposure to TDI at workplace concentrations was not associated with respiratory illnesses in this cohort, and consistent with other recent research, it seemed not to accelerate the normal age-related decline in pulmonary function.