A review of occupational disease surveillance systems in Modernet countries.

BACKGROUND: To improve occupational health public policies and to facilitate coordinated research within the European Union to reduce the incidence of occupational diseases (ODs), it is important to know what OD surveillance systems exist and how they compare. Monitoring trends in occupational diseases and tracing new and emerging risks in a network (Modernet) participants are well placed to provide this information as most either contribute data to and/or are involved in the management of OD systems. AIMS: To identify and describe OD surveillance systems in Modernet countries with the longer-term objective of identifying a core template to be used on a large scale. METHODS: A questionnaire sent to Modernet participants, seeking structured information about the OD surveillance system(s) in their country. RESULTS: Overall 14 countries (70%) provided information for 33 OD systems, among them 11 compensation-based (CB) systems. Six countries provided information for non-CB systems reporting for any type of OD. The other systems reported either only ODs from a prescribed list, or specific diagnoses or diagnostic groups, with reports to most schemes being physician-based. Data collected varied but all systems collected diagnosis, age, gender, date reported and occupation (and/or industry) and most collected information on exposure. CONCLUSIONS: This review provides information beneficial to both policy makers and researchers by identifying data sources useable to measure OD trends in European countries and opening the way to future work, both on trend comparisons within Europe and on the definition of a core template to extend OD surveillance on a larger scale.

Magnetic resonance imaging safety: principles and guidelines.

This paper provides an overview of the published literature regarding magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) safety. It gives basic information about the electromagnetic fields that are generated during the MRI diagnostic procedure, followed by a description of the biological effects of those fields on humans. It concludes with a discussion of the safety issues related to MRI use in clinical practice, highlighting the existing MRI standards and guidelines.

Contamination of food and agro products in the Republic of Macedonia.

The Republic of Macedonia has 662,000 ha of cultivated land with well-organised agricultural production. It is a well known producer of agricultural products. From 1991 to 1999, authorized laboratories conducted systematic control of about 6,500 food samples in 1991 to 36,000 by 1999 which included a whole range of hygienic quality parameters including microbiological and chemical. Microbiological contamination of food was reported to have caused disease outbreaks in 1,578 people in 1995, which dropped to 126 people in 1999. The decreasing trend of samples unfit for human consumption was observed for all food groups. As for the chemical parameters, an increasing trend of contaminated samples was noted only for additives, with peaks reaching 6.9% in 1998 and 4.9% in 1999 of the total number of analysed samples.

[The role of inflammation in the etiopathogenesis of occupational bronchial asthma]. / Uloga inflamacije u etiopatogenezi profesionalne bronhijalne astme.

Numerous recent studies point out a relationship between bronchial reactivity and the inflammation of the airways. The paper deals with the most frequent mechanisms of bronchoconstriction in occupational asthma combined with inflammatory process. The importance of inflammation in the Moira Chan-Yeung classification of occupational asthma is emphasized. According to this classification several types of occupational asthma are associated with the working environment. It is stressed that continuing prophylaxis of inflammation should protect the worker from irreversible airflow obstruction. This is of special interest to the population suffering from occupational asthma.