Citation

Kim S, Paek D. Environ. Health Toxicol. 2016; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Dept. of Environmental Health > Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul, Korea.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Korean Society of Environmental Health and Toxicology)

DOI

10.5620/eht.e2016025

PMID

28111422

Abstract

After the initial investigations of Korean CDC in 2011, more than 1,000 suspicious cases of humidifier disinfectant victims were subsequently reported up to 2015, and numbers are still increasing dramatically in 2016 in the midst of prosecutor's office investigation. In this study, we tried to summarize the current understandings of humidifier disinfectant related health effects based upon systemic review of published epidemiologic studies and toxicology investigations. Published studies of humidifier disinfectants were searched through 'pubmed' and 'toxline'?under the heading of 'humidifier disinfectant', and related reports were identified from the references and published report list of regulatory agencies including Korean National Institute of Environmental Research, US Environmental Protection Agency, and EU European Chemicals Agency. Case reports and epidemiologic studies have reported clinical features of severe form of humidifier disinfectant lung injury, together with epidemiologic findings of seasonal occurrence and demographic variations, including heightened susceptibility of young children. Toxicological studies have reported inhalation toxicities together with positive findings of in-vitro genotoxicity studies. For the areas of future research, based on cases of upper respiratory diseases and diseases of other organs including cancers among suspected victims of humidifier disinfectants, we tried to explore areas of unsolved issues that should be clarified for the management and prevention of health effects from humidifier disinfectants and chemicals of other related household products.

Language: en

Keywords

epidemiology; humidifier disinfectant; magnitude of victims; review; toxicity