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Query: UMLS:C0015672 (fatigue)
 51,768 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Pulmonary mycotoxicosis (PM), also termed organic dust toxic syndrome or silo unloader's syndrome, is an acute illness resulting from massive inhalation of microbial toxins in organic dusts. It has not been well described histologically. Three cases of PM are presented in this report. Open lung biopsies were examined in each case. All of the patients were farmers with no prior lung disease. One had burning in his eyes, throat, and chest after exposure to moldy silage; chills, fever, dry cough, malaise, and weakness developed within 24 hours. Two patients presented with fever, progressive dyspnea, cough, and fatigue within 24 hours of emptying a corncrib, cleaning a chicken coop, and baling hay. Bilateral alveolar and interstitial infiltrates on chest roentgenograms and leukocytosis with neutrophilia were observed in all of the three patients. Two patients became hypoxemic and required mechanical ventilation. Histologic examination showed acute and organizing diffuse alveolar damage in two biopsy specimens and an acute bronchopneumonia in the third. One specimen had 1- to 10-microm ovoid organisms demonstrable with methenamine silver stains; cultures grew Fusarium and Penicillium species. The other two biopsy specimens had negative tissue cultures and special stains for organisms, although Penicillium species were grown from a preoperative bronchoalveolar lavage in one case. The two patients on mechanical ventilation recovered completely with high-dose steroids. The third patient recovered without steroids. No patient had residual functional deficits or chest radiographic abnormalities. PM can be distinguished from allergic and infectious diseases common in individuals exposed to large amounts of organic dust by its clinicopathologic features.
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PMID:Pulmonary mycotoxicosis: a clinicopathologic study of three cases. 961 95

Moulds are responsible for diseases in humans through the three pathogenetic mechanisms of infection, allergy, and toxicity. Fungal infection is especially a risk factor for immunodeficient patients, but it occurs in immunocompetent patients as well. Fungal allergy is manifested as bronchial asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis, or allergic fungal sinusitis. Mycotoxicosis is almost exclusively the result of ingestion of mould-contaminated foodstuffs. In each case there is specificity for the etiologic mould. There is controversy regarding the ability of indoor airborne mould spores to cause human disease through non-specific toxicity via the inhalation route. Pulmonary mycotoxicosis is an established, although rare, occupational disease of farmers who inhale enormous quantities of mycotoxins, endotoxins, and other toxic chemicals from contaminated silage. Other conditions attributed to indoor airborne mycotoxin are unproven. These include infantile pulmonary hemosiderosis, epistaxis, 'toxic encephalopathy', immune dysregulation and a variety of subjective complaints without objective signs of pathology such as fatigue, headache, dyspnea, gastrointestinal distress, neuromuscular and skeletal complaints, etc. Non-specific irritation from moulds via the inhalation route is also a controversial subject that remains unproven. Published studies alleging an epidemiologic causal relationship are unconvincing.
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PMID:Sick Building Syndrome: is mould the cause? 1925 24