Lung Function in Rescue Workers at the World Trade Center after 7 Years

• Published in: The New England journal of medicine Vol. 362; no. 14; pp. 1263 - 1272
• Main Authors: Aldrich, Thomas K, Gustave, Jackson, Hall, Charles B, Cohen, Hillel W, Webber, Mayris P, Zeig-Owens, Rachel, Cosenza, Kaitlyn, Christodoulou, Vasilios, Glass, Lara, Al-Othman, Fairouz, Weiden, Michael D, Kelly, Kerry J, Prezant, David J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Waltham, MA Massachusetts Medical Society 08-04-2010
• Subjects: Adult; Air Pollutants; Biological and medical sciences; Confidence intervals; Dust; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Forced Expiratory Volume; General aspects; Humans; Inhalation Exposure - adverse effects; Linear Models; Lung - physiology; Male; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; Multivariate Analysis; New York City; Occupational Exposure - adverse effects; Occupational medicine; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Recovery of Function; Rescue Work; Respiratory Physiological Phenomena; September 11 Terrorist Attacks; Spirometry; New York City; Human; Worker; Lung function; Long term; Occupational medicine
• ISSN: 0028-4793; 1533-4406
• DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa0910087

Lung function was measured in firefighters and emergency-medical-service workers who responded to the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York on September 11, 2001. There was initial marked loss in lung-function measures without substantial recovery during the following 7 years.
Lung function was measured in firefighters and emergency-medical-service workers who responded to the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York on September 11, 2001. There was initial marked loss in lung-function measures without substantial recovery during the following 7 years.
The terrorist attack on the world Trade Center on September 11, 2001 (hereafter referred to as 9/11), and its consequent collapse killed 2751 persons, including 343 rescue workers employed by the Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) and exposed thousands of persons to a dense, persistent dust cloud of pulverized building materials and chemical by-products of combustion or pyrolysis.
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The FDNY rescue workers who responded to the World Trade Center site during the collapse or the subsequent 10-month rescue-and-recovery operations had substantial loss in pulmonary function during the first year after the event, more than 12 times the annual . . .