Characteristics of airway obstruction severity in relation to air pollutant in asbestos-exposed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease individuals: A cross-sectional study

Objective Despite of the tentative role of asbestos in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), their lung function variation in relation to air pollution remains unexplored. This cross-sectional study aimed to explore the effects of air pollution on severe airway obstruction (SAO) in asbestos-related COPD. Methods COPD subjects were retrospectively recruited, and their asbestos exposure and SAO were verified using the existence of pleural plaque in chest X-ray and the predicted value of forced expiratory volume in 1 second in percentage less than 50%, respectively, followed by examining the association between PM 2.5 , PM 10 , SO 2 , NO 2 , O 3 , and CO and SAO stratified by asbestos exposure using regression model. Results SAO percentage was 67.2% (41/61) and 65.2% (15/23) in COPD subjects without and with asbestos exposure, respectively. An increased 3-day average concentration of CO and O 3 correlated with SAO (odds ratio, 95% confidence interval: 0.06, 0.01-0.41 and 0.09, 0.01-0.64, respectively). Moreover, an increased 5-day average CO concentration also correlated with SAO (0.13, 0.02-0.71) prior to hospital admission of COPD subjects irrespective of asbestos exposure, and SAO failed to be associated with asbestos exposure. Conclusions Certain gaseous pollution at low concentration might generally exhibit a negative association with SAO in COPD subjects, indicating the negligibly negative impact of air pollution on lung function deterioration in asbestos-related COPD.