Ann. occup. Hyg., Vol. 46, No. 7, pp. 645-646, 2002
© 2002 British Occupational Hygiene Society
Published by Oxford University Press
Letters to the Editor |
Reply
University of Birmingham, Institute of Occupational Health, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
Received 17 July 2002;
We would like to thank David Beaumont and his team for their comments and important observations. We should first clarify that the exposure units cited in our manuscript from Swanson et al. (1994) and Liss et al. (1997) should have been quoted in ng/m3 and not µg/m3. This error is regrettable and should have been identified by us and amended when the proofs were corrected. The other general comments with regard to the need for standardization of the latex aeroallergen assay are in our opinion valid and we fully support these.
Latex aeroallergens levels in our study were determined using the RAST inhibition assay. Although the exposure levels generated using our assay can be compared, the assay itself is not standardized against other assays. Hence it is difficult to compare our values with other reported aeroallergen levels generated using other methods.
Dr M. Jones (co-author) in her laboratories has experienced that using different assay methods to measure rat aeroallergens can produce inconsistent results. Clearly there is a need to set up a study for inter-centre comparison of different assay methods (Hollander et al., 1999; Renstrom et al., 1999). Only when assay methods are standardized should we consider setting an appropriate threshold value.
REFERENCES
Hollander A, Gordon S, Renstrom A et al. (1999) Comparison of methods to assess airborne rat and mouse allergen levels. I Analysis of air samples. Allergy; 54: 142–9.[Web of Science][Medline]
Liss GM, Sussman GL, Deal K et al. (1997) Latex allergy: epidemiological study of 1351 hospital workers. Occup Environ Med; 54: 335–42.
Renstrom A, Gordon S, Hollander A et al. (1999) Comparison of methods to assess airborne rat and mouse allergen levels. II. Factors influencing antigen detection. Allergy; 54: 150–7.[Web of Science][Medline]
Swanson MC, Bubac ME, Hunt LW, Yunginger JW, Warner MA, Reed CE. (1994) Quantification of occupational latex aeroallergen in a medical center. J Allergy Clin Immunol; 94: 445–51.[Web of Science][Medline]
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