[Immunologic diagnostic pulmonary diseases caused by inhaled isocyanates (author's transl)].

Besides the strong irritative effect on the respiratory tract the isocyanates probably also have an allergenic effect. The paper gives a review of literature about immunologic in vitro- and in vivo-methods in this question. Difficulties arise especially with preparation of antigen. Isocyanates are thought to link with proteins to give antigenic conjugates. Specifity firstly depends on the isocyanate hapten.