De Lucca S D, O'meara T J, Tovey E R
Institute of Respiratory Medicine, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2000 Nov;106(5):874-9. doi: 10.1067/mai.2000.110804.
Clothing has been proposed as an additional source of exposure to mite and cat allergens. Dispersal of allergen into public places has also been attributed to clothing.
We sought to study the contribution of various types of clothing on mite and cat exposure in a domestic environment. Also, we studied the ability of clothing to transfer allergen in a workplace.
Personal exposure to mite and cat allergen from a range of clothing was measured by using intranasal air samplers in 11 homes. Five categories of clothing were tested. Wearing no upper clothing was the sixth category tested to distinguish the contribution of clothing over ambient background exposure. An adhesive tape was used to sample allergen from the surface of clothing, and reservoir dust samples were also collected. The above techniques were also used in the workplace to examine the amount of cat allergen transferred from cat owners to non-cat owners.
The amount of mite and cat allergen inhaled differed among the clothing types worn and whether they had been washed recently. Wearing a woolen sweater increased personal allergen exposure to cat and mite allergen by a mean of 11 and 10 times, respectively. Clothing items that were less frequently washed carried more allergen whether assessed by vacuuming or sampled with adhesive tape. This corresponded to the amount of allergen inhaled. We also found that cat levels on non-cat owners' clothing increased significantly at the end of a working day, which lead to the increase in their personal allergen exposure to cat.
These studies strongly support the emerging model that personal clothing is an important source of both mite and cat allergen exposure. This article also demonstrates the importance of clothing as a means of distributing cat allergen into cat-free environments.
衣物已被认为是接触螨虫和猫过敏原的另一个来源。过敏原扩散到公共场所也被归因于衣物。
我们试图研究各类衣物在家庭环境中对接触螨虫和猫过敏原的影响。此外，我们还研究了衣物在工作场所传播过敏原的能力。
在11个家庭中，使用鼻内空气采样器测量了一系列衣物上螨虫和猫过敏原的个人接触量。测试了五类衣物。不穿上衣作为第六类测试，以区分衣物对环境背景暴露的影响。使用胶带从衣物表面采集过敏原样本，同时也收集了储存灰尘样本。上述技术也用于工作场所，以检测从猫主人转移到非猫主人身上的猫过敏原量。
吸入的螨虫和猫过敏原量因所穿衣物类型以及衣物近期是否清洗而有所不同。穿着羊毛衫使个人对猫和螨虫过敏原的接触量平均分别增加了11倍和10倍。无论是通过吸尘还是用胶带采样评估，较少清洗的衣物携带的过敏原更多。这与吸入的过敏原量相对应。我们还发现，在工作日结束时，非猫主人衣物上的猫过敏原水平显著增加，这导致他们个人对猫过敏原的接触增加。
这些研究有力地支持了一种新出现的模式，即个人衣物是接触螨虫和猫过敏原的重要来源。本文还证明了衣物作为将猫过敏原传播到无猫环境中的一种手段的重要性。
