Reactions of healthy persons and persons suffering from allergic rhinitis when exposed to office dust

Objectives Reactions to airborne office dust among healthy subjects and sub jects suffering from allergic rhinitis were investigated. Methods Twelve healthy and Il subjects suffering from allergic rhinitis wer e exposed to clean air [17 JSD 2) mu g/m(3)] and office dust [439 (SD 68) m u g/m(3)] for 245 minutes. The effect measurements included subjective sens ations (questionnaire and potentiometer ratings), mood scale, peal; flow, b ronchial provocation with histamine using forced expiratory volume in 1 sec ond as the effect measure, nasal mucosal swelling, tear film stability, epi thelial damage, foam formation in the eye canthus, threshold for eye irrita tion with carbon dioxide, eye redness, cellular content of conjunctival flu id, and an addition test for distraction. As many investigations were made and as many statistical analyses (including subgroup analyses) were carded out, the risk of mass significance appeared. This problem was dealt with us ing the Bonferroni correction for multiple significance tests. Results The mean ratings of the potentiometer were higher (the subjects sho wed more irritation) during the dust exposure. The objective investigations showed only indications of effects of dust exposure, and some of the indic ations were in biologically unexplainable directions. No difference in the reactions to dust was observed between the healthy subjects and the subject s suffering from allergic rhinitis. Conclusions Dust does not seem to have objective or subjective effects on h umans, as only indications of dust effects were found. Subjects suffering f rom allergic rhinitis do not appear to be a risk group in relation to dust exposure.