Organic dust toxic syndrome

[1] Respiratory function may worsen to the point where hypoxia occurs, and damage to the airways may lead to non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema one to three days post exposure.

[2] The airways are exposed to high concentrations of organic dust created by some form of disturbance or mechanical process.

They can be such materials such as grain kernel fragments, bits of insects, bacteria, fungal spores, molds or chemical residues, the individual particles 0.1 to 50 μm in size.

[3] Exposure to high amounts of dust particles cause syndromes of grain fever, organic dust toxic syndrome, toxic pneumonitis, inhalation fever, silo unloaders' disease, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, farmers' lung, mushroom workers' lung, and bark strippers' disease.

[3] Recent studies have conducted that organic dust syndrome has acute like symptoms of grain fever, silo unloaders' disease and toxic pneumonitis.

In 1994, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health published case reports and highlighted the urgency for study of the syndrome.

Dust emissions have increased as a result of land use, industrial development, and animal grazing, particularly in the western United States.