Portuguese cork industry: filling the knowledge gap regarding occupational exposure to fungi and related health effects

Introduction: The presence of the Penicillium section Aspergilloides (formerly known as Penicillium glabrum) in the cork industry involves the risk of respiratory diseases such as suberosis. Methods: This study aimed to corroborate the predominant fungi presents in this occupational environment by performing a mycological analysis of 360 workers’ nasal exudates collected by nasal swabs. Additionally, evaluation of respiratory disorders among the cork workers was also performed by spirometry. Results: Penicillium section Aspergilloides was detected by qPCR in 37 out of the 360 nasal swabs collected from workers’ samples. From those, 25 remained negative for Penicillium sp. when using culture-based methods. A significant association was found between ventilatory defects and years of work in the cork industry, with those people working for 10 or more years in this industry having an approximately two-fold increased risk of having ventilatory defects compared to those working less time in this setting. Among the workers who detected the presence of Penicillium section Aspergilloides, those with symptoms presented slightly higher average values of CFU. Discussion: Overall, the results obtained in this study show that working in the cork industry may have adverse effects on worker’s respiratory health. Nevertheless, more studies are needed (e.g., using serological assays) to clarify the impact of each risk factor (fungi and dust) on disease etiology.

Description

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was supported by the Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, for funding the Projects IPL/IDI&CA2023/FoodAIIEU_ESTeSL; IPL/IDI&CA2023/ASPRisk_ESTeSL; IPL/IDI&CA2023/ARAFSawmills_ESTeSL. This project was supported by FCT/MCTES UIDP/05608/2020, and UIDB/05608/2020. We thank the companies and workers for participating in the study.

Keywords

Penicillium glabrum complex Aspergillus sp. Spirometry Health effects Suberosis Cork industry Portugal IPL/IDI&CA2023/FoodAIIEU_ESTeSL IPL/IDI&CA2023/ASPRisk_ESTeSL IPL/IDI&CA2023/ARAFSawmills_ESTeSL FCT_UIDP/05608/2020 FCT_UIDB/05608/2020

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/17503

Citation

Viegas C, Dias M, Pacífico C, Clérigo A, Dias HB, Caetano LA, Carolino E, Gomes AQ, Viegas S, et al. Portuguese cork industry: filling the knowledge gap regarding occupational exposure to fungi and related health effects. Front Public Health. 2024;12:1355094.