Pneumoconiosi dell’odontotecnico: storia della medicina o problematica attuale?

Interstitial diseases (silicosis and extrinsic allergic alveolitis) caused by the exposure to airborne contaminants during the manufacture of dental prostheses are classified as a special group called dental technician’s pneumoconioses (DTP). The main respiratory toxics in the production processes are plaster, refractory materials that contain an high percentage of silica, wax, acrylic resin, ceramic, methyl methacrylate and cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (CoCrMo) alloys. A multidisciplinary working group on interstitial lung diseases (GIM) has been established at the Careggi University Hospital in Florence in November 2008. With this program we evaluated a never-smoker 58-year-old man with a suspected diagnosis of silicosis. He has been worked in a craft dental laboratory from 1967 to 2005, but he had not respiratory symptoms until December 2009. Diffuse pulmonary parenchymal infiltrates has been showed as the result of the HRCT examination. Lung biopsy with the mineralogical analysis wasn’t performed due to lack of patient consent. We believe, on the basis of our experience, that a multidisciplinary approach in the study and in the diagnosis of interstitial lung diseases is essential. The role of the employment factors in the genesis of DTP and of all interstitial lung diseases seems to be significantly undervalued nowadays.