Chronic Effects of Fire Casualty on Pulmonary Function

Abstract

Eighty three of train passengers who had been rescued from tunnel fire casualty in 1972 were examined for the study of the chronic respiratory function consequences. The interval between the outbreak of casualty and the study was 7 years. Dyspnea on exertion and FEV_<1.0>% less than 70 were found in 19.7% and 15.9% of studied subjects respectively. According to the hospitalization length in acute stage, more lowered maximal flow at 25% VC (V_<25>) and raised airway resistance (Raw) were found among longer hospitalized victims. While V_<25> was shown to correlate both to smoking index and hospitalization length, Raw correlated only to the latter, that is V_<25> failed to discriminate the effects of smoke or toxic gas inhalation from that of cigarette smoking. The increased Raw in subjects with longer hospitalization is supposed to reflect the severity of acute injury to the upper airways on occasion of the fire accident.