title: Is driving a car a risk for Legionnaires' disease?
abstract: Legionnaires' disease (LD) is a major cause of severe community-acquired pneumonia but the source and mode of transmission are not always apparent, especially in sporadic cases. We hypothesized that LD can be acquired from the air-conditioning systems of motor cars. Swabs were taken from the evaporator compartments of the air-conditioning system of scrapped cars. Healthy subjects who were mainly employees of regional transportation companies were tested for antibody to Legionella pneumophila serogroups 1-6; they also completed a questionnaire. Legionella species were detected in 11/22 scrapped cars by the loop-mediated isothermal amplification method. The prevalence of microplate agglutination titres > or =1:32 was significantly higher in subjects who sometimes used car air-conditioning systems. Although we did not prove a direct link between Legionella spp. in the car evaporator and LD, our findings point to a potential risk of car air-conditioning systems in LD, which needs further investigation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan. sakamoto@u-kyoto.jp
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sakamoto
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ohno
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakahara
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Satomura
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Iwanaga
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kouyama
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kura
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Noami
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kusaka
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Funato
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsubayashi
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Okumiya
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000389:Air Conditioning / Q000009:adverse effects*; D001334:Automobile Driving; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D016952:Legionella pneumophila / Q000302:isolation & purification; D007877:Legionnaires' Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D016272:Occupational Health; D011159:Population Surveillance; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012698:Serologic Tests