Ambulatory Goeckerman treatment of psoriasis: experience with 200 patients.
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At a psoriasis day care centre 200 patients were treated with an ambulatory Goeckerman regimen, 25 of them twice, because of recurrence. This treatment consists of the application of a coal tar preparation at home at bedtime, followed the next day by exposure to high-intensity short wavelength ultraviolet radiation (UVB) at the centre. Treatment was given 5 days a week for 1 month. The psoriasis cleared in 86% of the patients after a mean of 21.6 UVB treatment sessions. The mean length of remission was 5.1 months, but at the time of follow-up 15 patients were still free of psoriasis. Compliance with the regimen was good to excellent in 94% of the patients. In our hands ambulatory treatment of psoriasis is much less expensive than hospital treatment and gives better results than photochemotherapy. (+info)
Biochemical decomposition of coal-tar dyes. I. Biochemical decomposition and identification of decomposed products.
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Biochemical degradation test of food coal-tar dyes using sludge was studied in order to evaluate their safety. It was found that some dyes were little decomposed under aerobic condition but four azo dyes were readily decomposed under anaerobic condition. These were Food Yellow No. 4, No. 5, and Food Red No. 2, No. 102. Decomposed products of these four azo dyes by sludge under anaerobic condition were identified as sulfonilic, naphthionic acids and so on. (+info)
Biochemical decomposition of coal-tar dyes. II. Acute toxicity of coal-tar dyes and their decomposed products.
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Twenty kinds of coal-tar dyes were subjected to median tolerance limit (TLm) test by use of Himedaka (Oryzias latipes) for the comparision of their acute toxicities. It became clear that 4 kinds of halogens substituted xanthene compounds dyes showed strong acute toxicities. From the fact that uranine had the lower acute toxicity than halogens substituted compounds and the toxicities of these 4 dyes increased through irradiation, it was assumed that halogen atoms in dyes might be responsible for these strong acute toxicities to fish. (+info)
Microcolumn liquid chromatography: a tool of potential significance in biomedical research.
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Recent progress in the area of microcolumn HPLC is reviewed with an emphasis on biomedically important directions. The potential of high efficiency separations, additional advantages of solvent economy, and the development of new detection and ancillary techniques of high-performance liquid chromatography are also discussed. (+info)
Human peripheral blood lymphocytes as a cell model to evaluate the genotoxic effect of coal tar treatment.
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Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) from psoriatic patients therapeutically exposed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) during coal tar (CT) treatment were used to evaluate the in vivo formation of benzo[a]pyrene diol epoxide(BaPDE)-DNA adducts by an ELISA technique and by the 32P-postlabeling method. Moreover, we controlled if the pretreatment with CT influences the formation of BaP-DNA adducts and the BaP metabolism in the PBL obtained from psoriatic patients, treated in vitro with BaP. Our data did not show any significant influence of the CT treatment on the levels of PAH-DNA adducts. Moreover, the use of PBL from psoriatic patients, treated in vitro with BaP, did not allow to detect significant modifications of the metabolic activation of BaP and of the ability of its metabolites to bind to DNA, before and after CT treatment. Thus, PBL do not seem to represent an useful cell model to evaluate the possible genotoxic effect of the exposure through the skin of psoriatic patients to the PAH contained in CT. (+info)
Mortality and cancer morbidity in workers from an aluminium smelter with prebaked carbon anodes--Part I: Exposure assessment.
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OBJECTIVES: To design a job-exposure matrix for epidemiological studies of men who had worked in a Norwegian aluminium smelter between 1922 and 1975. METHODS: Jobs held by cohort members were identified from personnel records. Tasks and their locations were determined for all jobs, and information was gathered about changes in exposure conditions over time. The jobs were combined into categories thought to have experienced similar exposure conditions, and time weighted average exposures were estimated on a relative scale. The results were reviewed by a panel of former smelter employees and an experienced industrial hygienist. RESULTS: 96 different jobs could be identified from the cohort members' work histories. These were grouped into 18 categories, and relative exposure intensities were estimated for 31 different combinations of category and period. The most prevalent exposure in the cohort was pot emissions (fluorides, sulphur dioxide, and carbon monoxide; 74% ever exposed), followed by magnetic fields and heat stress (65-68%), asbestos (40%), and coal tar pitch volatiles (33%). CONCLUSIONS: Although the use of this job-exposure matrix in the subsequent epidemiological studies may result in some misclassification of exposure, this is unlikely to seriously attenuate true risks in a stratified analysis based on cumulative exposure. (+info)
Mortality and cancer morbidity in workers from an aluminium smelter with prebaked carbon anodes--Part II: Cancer morbidity.
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OBJECTIVE: To investigate associations between cancer incidence and exposure to coal tar pitch volatiles, asbestos, pot emissions (fluorides, sulphur dioxide), heat stress, and magnetic fields in workers from a Norwegian aluminium smelter that operated from 1914 to 1975. METHODS: Cancer incidence between 1953 and 1991 was recorded in a cohort of 1137 men hired between 1922 and 1975. The expected number of cancer cases was calculated from incidence rates in Norwegian men. A job exposure matrix with semiquantitative exposure estimates was used to investigate associations between cumulative exposure estimates was used to investigate associations between cumulative exposure and cancer incidence through exploring temporal relations by considering exposures only within specific time windows. RESULTS: A significant excess of cancer cases, 90 observed v 59.0 expected, was found in workers who had been employed for less than three years. No such excess was found in men with at least three years' employment, with 120 cases observed v 129.7 expected. In this subcohort an association was found between the incidence of bladder cancer and exposure to coal tar pitch volatiles 40 years or more before each person-year under observation, and between incidence of lung cancer and tar exposure 35-50 years before observation. An association was also found between incidence of kidney cancer and exposure to heat stress 20-35 years before observation. CONCLUSIONS: The results support previous findings that exposure to coal tar pitch volatiles in the aluminium industry has been associated with increased risk of bladder and lung cancer. They also add information about temporal relations, suggesting that exposure to tar in this smelter has acted on an early stage in the development of these cancers, followed by a latency period of 30-40 years. (+info)
Mortality and cancer morbidity in workers from an aluminium smelter with prebaked carbon anodes--Part III: Mortality from circulatory and respiratory diseases.
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OBJECTIVE: To investigate associations between exposure to pot emissions (fluorides, sulphur dioxide) and mortality from chronic obstructive lung disease, coal tar pitch volatiles and mortality from diseases related to atherosclerosis, and carbon monoxide and mortality from ischaemic heart disease. METHODS: Mortality between 1962 to 1991 was investigated in a cohort of 1085 men hired by a Norwegian aluminium smelter between 1922 and 1975. Associations between cumulative exposure and mortality were investigated through SMR analysis based on national mortality rates; temporal relations were explored by considering exposures only within specific time windows. Circulatory mortality was also investigated by Poisson regression analysis. RESULTS: There were 501 deaths v 471.3 expected in the cohort. The excess was confined to short term workers and did not seem to be associated with exposures in the smelter. Analysis of mortality among the 661 men with at least three years employment showed associations between cumulative exposure to tar 40 years before observation and atherosclerotic mortality (P = 0.03), and between exposure to pot emissions 20-39 years before observation and mortality from chronic obstructive lung disease (P = 0.06). No association was found between exposure to carbon monoxide and mortality from ischaemic heart disease, but cerebrovascular mortality was associated with exposure to pot emissions (P = 0.02). Results for atherosclerotic and cerebrovascular diseases were confirmed through Poisson regression analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The data support previous findings of increased mortality from ischaemic heart disease in workers exposed to tar, and some support is also provided for earlier reports of increased respiratory mortality in potroom workers. (+info)