Military personnel who were deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq could have been exposed to significant amounts of dust and other respiratory hazards, resulting in persistent respiratory symptoms and diseases like asthma and bronchiolitis. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and National Jewish Health teamed up to analyze lung disease seen in previously deployed military personnel.
Heather Lowers, a research geologist on the USGS, will present findings taking a look at the characteristics of dust retained within the lungs of previously deployed military personnel Monday on the GSA Connects 2022 meeting in Denver.
I never in my profession thought I can be taking a look at human lung tissue. Through some previous work that we had done taking a look at first responders to the World Trade Center, we were connected with a team of pulmonologists and lung pathologists who were trying to higher understand how inhaled particulate matter could cause lung injury. Several of my co-authors at National Jewish Health have a Department of Defense grant to have a look at what’s causing a few of the unexpected lung injury in those that were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Heather Lowers, Research Geologist, USGS
With funding support from the Department of Defense, National Jewish Health has built a clinic to judge previously deployed military personnel who were experiencing symptoms of lung injury. Lowers’ job as geologist on the project was to develop a technique to extract and analyze particulate matter present in the lungs. Using techniques to supply high-resolution images of microscopic particles and characterize their elemental composition, Lowers evaluated the composition and size of inorganic particles present in the lungs.
Of the 250 deployers who got here to the National Jewish Health clinic, 65 had a surgical lung biopsy as a part of their clinical care, and 24 gave permission for his or her lung biopsy to be studied for this research. The lung biopsies of the 24 deployers were in comparison with 11 civilian control samples from donated lung specimens that matched the age and smoking history of the deployers.
“We found that generally speaking, the military deployers did have more retained dust of their lungs per cubic centimeter of tissue that we checked out in comparison with the controls. And the particles generally gave the impression to be a smaller size as well, in comparison with the dust that was retained within the control group,” said Lowers.
In addition they found that each deployers who reported low/no sandstorm exposure or medium-high sandstorm exposure had higher amounts of dust of their lungs than the control samples.
“On the whole, even when there are not any dust storms, soldiers work in a fairly dusty environment. So we were taking a look at a culmination of all that might have been inhaled during their deployment,” said Lowers. “Even driving a truck across the desert floor, you are going to kick up dust and breathe it in.”
While these analyses provide helpful insight into the lung injury seen in previously deployed military personnel, Lowers hopes that more samples will be studied to more fully evaluate the characteristics of retained dust within the lungs.
“One among the challenges I’ve learned working with human subjects is that it’s extremely difficult to get enough people enrolled in these studies. So, while we’re generally seeing differences between the controls and the deployers, the variety of samples are limited,” said Lowers.
Based on the increased amount of dust that’s present in the lungs of previously deployed military personnel, useful mitigation strategies shall be needed to cut back deployers’ exposure to dust.
Source:
Geological Society of America