Clinical statistics analysis on the characteristics of pneumoconiosis of Chinese miner population.
BACKGROUND
Pneumoconiosis is one of the most common occupational diseases, which shows the progressive and irreversible pathological changes. It ultimately can induce pulmonary failure and lead to death. To date, these patients have no curative treatment option under the current standard of care, so it is especially important to delay the onset of the disease and slow down its progression. Therefore, understanding of clinical features of pneumoconiosis is particularly critical for medical intervention.


METHODS
We collected the clinical data from 118 pneumoconiosis cases of miners admitted in hospital and processed the statistics analysis by using the Chi-square test and the risk assessment.


RESULTS
Compared to other types of miners, gold miners are liable to cause Broncho-pulmonary co-infection with Chi-square value 18.748 and the P value <0.001. However, unexpectedly, the smoking miners displayed a better Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) compared to non-smokers, which showed 19.318 of Chi-square score and less than 0.001 of P value. And this connection was associated with the dust exposure time (P<0.05), showing the increasing risk of non-smoking miners occurred as the increasing time exposed to dust. In addition, our analysis indicated that the probability of smoking miners suffered from Broncho-pulmonary co-infection was less than non-smoking miners with Chi-square value 8.044 and P<0.01, which was also associated with the dust exposure time tendentiously, though P>0.05. Moreover, smoking history exhibited a deteriorating effect to the overall survival (OS) with 9.546 of Chi-square value and P<0.05, in accordance with smoking reducing life time. Interestingly, pneumoconiosis drugs could extend the smokers' OS, but not non-smokers'.


CONCLUSIONS
Our studies suggest that the history of smoking and exposure time of dust play important roles in the development of pneumoconiosis and smoking could be a factor that determines the treatment options depending on patients' smoking history.
Department of Respiratory Medicine, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, China ;
Mei-Fang
MF
Wang
State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine/Macau Institute for Applied Research in Medicine and Health, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau (SAR), China ;
Run-Ze
RZ
Li
State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine/Macau Institute for Applied Research in Medicine and Health, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau (SAR), China ;
Ying
Y
Li
Department of Respiratory Medicine, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, China ;
Xue-Qin
XQ
Cheng
Department of Respiratory Medicine, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, China ;
Jun
J
Yang
Department of Medical Imaging, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, China.
Wen
W
Chen
State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine/Macau Institute for Applied Research in Medicine and Health, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau (SAR), China ;
Xing-Xing
XX
Fan
State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine/Macau Institute for Applied Research in Medicine and Health, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau (SAR), China ;
Hu-Dan
HD
Pan
State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine/Macau Institute for Applied Research in Medicine and Health, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau (SAR), China ;
Xiao-Jun
XJ
Yao
Department of Respiratory Medicine, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, China ;
Tao
T
Ren
Department of Respiratory Medicine, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, China ;
Xin
X
Qian
State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine/Macau Institute for Applied Research in Medicine and Health, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau (SAR), China ;
Liang
L
Liu
State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine/Macau Institute for Applied Research in Medicine and Health, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau (SAR), China ;
Elaine Lai-Han
EL
Leung
Department of Respiratory Medicine, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, China ;
Yi-Jun
YJ
Tang
Pneumoconiosis; epidemiology (EP); prevention & control (PC)