Some aspects of occupational asthma.

The behaviour of forty-four patients, taken from a group of 133 cases of extrinsic pulmonary granulomatoses (EPG), who before developing the disease had no history of atopy and after being affected presented asthma-like symptoms, is analysed. Some of these patients had simultaneously clinical signs of rhinitis which proved to be due to lesions identical to those found in the bronchial mucosa. From the presented results, the author concludes that the clinical manifestations of these patients are not of the classical allergic type but bronchial and nasal reactions of the EPG in which, at least, a type III hypersensitivity reaction is involved. This is supported by the results of bronchial provocation tests performed on twenty-three patients with suberosis.