Answer to Question #1:
Respiratory: itchy eyes and nose, wheezing and shortness of breath
Skin: itchy skin rash.
(Back to exercise, Question #2)
Answer to Question #2:
| Irritant |
Allergic |
| Symptoms after first exposure |
Symptoms after repeated exposure (latency period) |
| Usually associated with very high exposures |
Can occur with very low exposures |
| Symptoms due to local response |
May have systemic response affecting more than one body system |
| Most exposed workers affected |
Some workers affected (host risk factors e.g. atopic) |
|
|
|
|
(Back to exercise, Question #3)
Answer to Question #3:
- phytase enzyme;
- antibiotics;
- vitamins.
(Back to exercise, Question #4)
Answer to Question #4:
.
High molecular weight since it is an enzyme of protein origin.
(Back to exercise, Question #5)
Answer to Question #5:
Type 1 - IgE-mediated (immediate) allergic reaction.
(Back to exercise, Question #6)
Answer to Question #6:
- they may not have been significantly exposed;
- if they had been similarly exposed there may be other host factors in the symptomatic group that may have predisposed to becoming sensitised to the allergen e.g. atopy, smoking, HLA type, non-specific bronchial hyperresponsiveness.
(Back to exercise, Question #7)
Answer to Question #7:
- conduct skin prick test (or RAST if available) to determine if the person is sensitised to phytase;
- measure the allergen in the workplace environment;
- look for an association between exposure, sensitisation and symptoms.
(Back to exercise, Question #8)
Answer to Question #8:
Use encapsulated phytase pellets instead of liquid aerosol or powder form.
(Back to exercise, Question #9)
Answer to Question #9:
This is controversial, but the standard practice is not to promote such practices since they are inherently discriminatory, they remove focus on improving the work environment; and their positive predictive value is low (30%) for detecting new onset occupational asthma cases.
(Back to exercise)
Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health (DOH) - Modules 3 – 5: Occupational Medicine & Toxicology by Prof Rodney Ehrlich & Prof Mohamed Jeebhay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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