Since pulmonary overdistension may play a role in producing respiratory disability in coal miners, the effect of increasing radiographic category, according to the UICC classification of pneumoconiosis, on lung volumes was investigated. After ascertaining that Barnhard's radiographic method gave acceptable results in the determination of lung volumes, regression equations were used for determining predicted residual volume (RV), total lung capacity (TLC), and the ratio RV/TLC. More than 2000 working anthracite and bituminous coal miners were studied. The subjects were divided into six groups based on presence or absence of airway obstruction and of radiographic categorization of their simple coal workers pneumoconiosis (CWP). RV increased with radiographic category regardless of the presence of obstructive airway disease. The presence of obstruction had an additional effect, so that the largest increases in RV were found in miners with both obstruction and pneumoconiosis. Several possible explanations are presented for the significantly greater than predicted observed mean RV in nonobstructed miners; the authors favor the explanation that CWP is associated with an increase in resistance in flow in the distal airways. The upward trend of RV with radiographic category was not related to smoking habits, except that the ratio of observed to predicted RV in each category was higher for smokers than for nonsmokers.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.