Prevalence of respiratory symptoms and spirometric changes among non-smoker male wood workers.

Respiratory symptoms associated with work, are more prevalent among wood workers than office workers. Our data revealed that workplace exposure to hardwood dust may compromise respiratory function, indicating the importance and the need for optimizing preventive measures in workplace to protect the respiratory health among exposed workers. Obstructive changes on pulmonary function test is a dominant pathologic pattern in pulmonary function test among wood workers. Further investigation is required by current available tools such as nasal cytology to detect influence of wood dust exposure on the upper respiratory airway.