Biological markers of host susceptibility to air pollutants in epidemiologic studies on chronic airways obstruction.

Measuring the variations in risk among individuals or populations of environmentally induced chronic airways obstruction is necessary to develop rational policy to reduce the incidence of those diseases in a given population. Before being able to formulate this policy, however, one must know how to detect those individuals who are susceptible to ari pollutants since they are at increased risk of disease. In the paper the authors discussed several monitoring techniques to detect markers of early biological events relevant to host susceptibility and disease progression. The biological markers are based on genetic traits, pulmonary function tests, biochemical and immune changes. The authors discuss merits and demerits of particular approaches in identifying persons prone to chronic airways obstruction. They stress the point that more research is needed on biochemical and immunological markers of lung injury to assess their usefulness in identifying individuals at higher risk.