Beryllium diseases caused

Beryllium-containing materials can be potentially harm fill if mishandled. Care must be taken in the fabrication and processing of beryUium products to avoid inhalation of airborne beryllium particulate matter such as dusts, mists, or fumes in excess of prescribed workplace limits. Inhalation of fine airborne beryllium may cause chronic beryllium disease, a serious lung disorder, in certain sensitive individuals. However, most people, perhaps as many as 99%, do not react to beryUium exposure at any level (see Beryllium and beryllium alloys). 

Beryllium metal has properties that make it technologically attractive (Alderighi et al, 2000), but these advantages are counterbalanced by the toxicity of inhaled beryllium dust, which can cause chronic beryllium disease (Sauer et a/., 2002). The etiology of this immune hyper-response disease (Eontenot et a/., 2001) is poorly understood, but the final disease state is characterized by lung failure. 

Exposure is usually by inhalation. It s compounds can cause dermatitis, acute pnemnonitis, acute lung disease and a specific disease (beryllium disease), that erodes the limgs leading to lung cancer, making it hard to walk, causing severe pain and exhaustion, and usually resulting in a slow, painful death by suffocation. 

OSHA considers skin diseases as illnesses caused by exposure to chemicals, plants, or other hazardous substances. OSHA dehnes respiratory conditions or illnesses as breathing-related problems associated with pneumonitis, pharyngitis, rhinitis, farmer s lung, beryllium disease, tuberculosis, occupational asthma, reactive airways dysfunction syndrome, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and hypersensitivity. Examples can include heatstroke, hypothermia, decompression sickness, effects of ionizing radiation, exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays, anthrax, and bloodbome pathogen diseases. 

The epithelioid cells in tuberculosis, sarcoidosis, Kveim tests, Crohn s disease, beryllium disease and swimming pool granuloma, irrespective of their cause, showed identical enzyme patterns, strong pentose cycle activity - biosynthesis, and strong hydrolase activity - phagocytosis (Williams et al. 

Beryllium allergy is caused when it sticks to an oxygen-rich pocket... M. T. Falta et al. Identification of beryllium-dependent peptides recognized by CD4+ T cells in chronic beryllium disease. 2013.7 Exp Aferf. 210(7), p. 1403. DOI 10.1084/jem.20122426. 

Beryllium exposure occurs in a wide variety of occupations. It may cause acute berylliosis (currently very rare), beryllium sensitization, chronic beryllium disease, or lung cancer. Imaging manifestations of chronic beryllium disease are generally similar to those of sarcoidosis, with nodules, ground glass abnormality, septal thickening, conglomerate masses, and mediastinal or hilar lymphadenopathy. 

Mercury, lead, and cadmium can attack the central nervous system carbon tetrachloride and chlorinated phenols can destroy the liver ethylene glycol and cadmium sulfate produce kidney disease asbestos and beryllium lead to lung disorders and lead poisoning can cause mental retardation. 

Elemental Be and its compounds are very poisonous by inhalation or intravenous route. Chronic inhalation of beryUium dusts or fumes can cause a serious lung disease, beryUiosis, after a latent period ranging from several months to many years. Inhalation of airborne dusts can also cause an acute disease manifested as dyspnea, pneumonitis and tracheobronchitis with a short latency period of a few days. Skin contact with soluble salts of the metal can cause dermatitis. Beryllium also is a carcinogen. There is sufficient evidence of its inducing cancer in animals and humans. 

Acute pulmonary disease is due exclusively to inhalation of soluble beryllium salts and is not caused by exposure to the oxide, the metal, or its alloys. The exact forms of beryllium causing the chronic pulmonary disease and the degree of exposure necessary to induce it are not precisely known. It is known that under the completely uncontrolled conditions existing in bery llium extraction plants before the establishment of air-count standards in 1949, when beiyllium air-counts were in milligrams per cubic meter of air rather than micrograms, only about 1% of the exposed workers became ill This would indicate a sensitivity of a limited number of individuals to beryllium. 

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