Korean J Occup Environ Med.  1994 Sep;6(2):439-446.

A Case Report on Glass Fiber-induced Health Hazard due to Car interior Material

• Lim HS
• Cheong HK
• Kim JY
• Cheong HK
• Sung YO
• Paik NW

Abstract

Glass Fiber is manufactured from typical glass-making raw materials, silicon dioxide with various metals and other elements. There are three distinct types of commercial glass fiber products: glass wool, an entangled mass of interlocking fibers; continuous glass filament, a product with a more ordered arrangement of fibers; and special-purpose glass fiber, a small-diameter fiber (less than 3 um) . We report a case of glass fiber-induced health hazard due to continuous glass filament from fiber reinforced plastics (FRF) as car interior material. A 40 years old man complained a sudden onset of severe itching on whole body, especially neck and forearms while driving a new car. He also complained burning of eyes, sore throat and productive cough. We diagnosed the glass fiver-induced skin lesion by placing skin scraping on a slide glass and examining the specimen under a microscope. We found same fibers from the air samples in the car and from the material of the interior surface of the car by the microscopic examination. Therefore we confirmed that the patient's symptoms and signs were induced by glass fiber.

MeSH Terms

Adult
Burns
Cough
Forearm
Glass*
Humans
Metals
Neck
Nerve Fibers, Myelinated
Pharyngitis
Plastics
Pruritus
Silicon Dioxide
Skin
Wool
Metals
Plastics
Silicon Dioxide