Prevalence of Laboratory Animal Allergy in Laboratory Workers

Tae Jong Son; Jung Hwan Bae; Chae Seo Rhee; Won Keun Seong

doi:10.5625/lar.2010.26.2.165

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Son, Bae, Rhee, and Seong: Prevalence of Laboratory Animal Allergy in Laboratory Workers

Original Article

Lab. Anim. Res. 2010;26(2):165-171.

Published online: 17 June 2010

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5625/lar.2010.26.2.165

Prevalence of Laboratory Animal Allergy in Laboratory Workers

Tae Jong Son¹, Jung Hwan Bae¹, Chae Seo Rhee², Won Keun Seong^1,^∗

¹Division of Biosafety Evaluation and Control, National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Seoul, Korea

²Department of Otorhinolaryngology, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

^∗Corresponding author: Won Keun Seong, Division of Biosafety Evaluation and Control, National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 194 Tongil-lo, Eunpyung-gu, Seoul 122-701, Korea Tel: +82-2-380-2970 Fax: +82-2-380-2280 E-mail: wksung@nih.go.kr

Received 13 March 201017 May 2010 Accepted 10 June 2010

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study was designed to analyze the prevalence rates of laboratory animal allergy (LAA) in laboratory workers who perform researches with animals, and detect the mouse urinary allergen (Mus m 1) level in animal facilities for the purpose of establishing program for prevention of exposure to allergen. Study subjects were 240 employees who were working for two animal research institutions in Korea. Then the questionnaire and skin prick tests (SPTs) using twenty allergens were conducted with them. Presence of Mus m 1 in each air borne sample collected from animal facility was determined by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Through 240 questionnaire sheets, we found that; (1) 17.0% of workers in the direct exposure group answered that they had allergic symptoms due to laboratory animals; and (2) 6.2% of them had asthmatic symptoms. Twenty one subjects (27.6%) among the subjects with common allergens positive result and five subjects (6.6%) among the subjects with negative result showed a positive response to LAA under the SPTs. The Mus m 1 concentration (1.339 ng/m³) in the sample collected during cage exchange in mouse breeding room was up to 2.8 times higher than its concentration (0.483 ng/m³) in the sample collected at the stationary state. We suggest that LAA management programs including control of exposure to laboratory animal allergens should be considered as a measure to reduce the incidence of LAA and relieve the laboratory worker's allergic sensitivity to laboratory animals.

Keywords: Laboratory animal allergy, mus m 1, aero-allergen, exposure assessment

REFERENCES

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Figure 1.

The positive rate of laboratory animal allergy in positive population to common allergen was 27.6% (21/76) and that of negative population to common allergen was 6.6% (5/ 76), respectively, showed with statistical significance (P<0.01).

Table 1.

Comparison and sensitization rate of workers with and without laboratory animals by questionnaire

	Questionnaire (n=240)
	Direct (n=177)	Indirect (n=63)	OR^a	95% CI^b
Demographics
Gender
Male (n)	79	15
Female (n)	98	48
Average age	33	30
Years of working with animals	3.8	-
Sensitization
Environment allergen	77 (43.5%)	27 (42.9%)	1.036	0.797-1.348
Animal allergen	30 (17.0%)	-
Asthma	11 (6.2%)	3 (4.8%)	1.456	1.079-1.963
Expose to mice, h
<5 hours	15/109 (13.8%)	-	1
5 to ＜10 hours	2/13 (15.4%)	-	1.139	0.175-1.146
≥10 hours	3/8 (37.5%)	-	3.760	0.134-1.008

^a Odds Ratio,

^b Confidence interval.

Table 2.

Mus m 1 aero-allergen concentration during different tasks of laboratory animal care taking

Area	Status	No. of samples^a	Mus m 1 concentration (ng/m³)
Area	Status	No. of samples^a	Mean	Range
Office room		10	ND^b	ND
Anteroom		10	0.188±0.001	ND-0.188
Mouse breeding room	Stationary^c	10	0.483±0.161^∗	ND-1.183
Cleaning room		10	ND	ND
Mouse breeding room	Working^d	101.339±0.326^∗	0.219-3.285
Cleaning room	Working	10	3.093±0.697	0.175-5.810

^a The collected sample was 480 L,

^b No detection,

^c No working with laboratory animals,

^d Working with laboratory animals,

^∗ P<0.05 compared to stationary/working status.

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