title: Carbon Nanotubes and Chronic Granulomatous Disease.
abstract: Use of nanomaterials in manufactured consumer products is a rapidly expanding industry and potential toxicities are just beginning to be explored. Combustion-generated multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) or nanoparticles are ubiquitous in non-manufacturing environments and detectable in vapors from diesel fuel, methane, propane, and natural gas. In experimental animal models, carbon nanotubes have been shown to induce granulomas or other inflammatory changes. Evidence suggesting potential involvement of carbon nanomaterials in human granulomatous disease, has been gathered from analyses of dusts generated in the World Trade Center disaster combined with epidemiological data showing a subsequent increase in granulomatous disease of first responders. In this review we will discuss evidence for similarities in the pathophysiology of carbon nanotube-induced pulmonary disease in experimental animals with that of the human granulomatous disease, sarcoidosis.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, East Carolina University, Brody Medical Sciences Building, 600 Moye Blvd. Rm. 3E-149, Greenville, NC 27834, USA.
authors.forename: Barbara P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Barna
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Albany Medical College, MC-91, 47 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, NY 12208, USA.
authors.forename: Marc A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Judson
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, East Carolina University, Brody Medical Sciences Building, 600 Moye Blvd. Rm. 3E-149, Greenville, NC 27834, USA.
authors.forename: Mary Jane
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Thomassen
keywords: alveolar macrophages; carbon nanotubes; sarcoidosis