Abstract
【Abstract】To review long-term respiratory effects
of mustard gas on Iranian veterans having undergone Iraq-Iran war. Electronic databases of Scopus, Medline, ISI,
IranMedex, and Irandoc sites were searched. We accepted
articles published in scientific journals as a quality criterion.
The main pathogenic factors are free radical mediators. Preva-lence of pulmonary involvement is approximately 42.5%. The
most common complaints are cough and dyspnea. Major
respiratory complications are chronic obstructive pulmo-nary disease, bronchiectasis, and asthma. Spirometry re-sults can reveal restrictive and obstructive pulmonary
disease. Plain chest X-ray does not help in about 50% of
lung diseases. High-resolution CT of the lung is the best
modality for diagnostic assessment of parenchymal lung
and bronchi. There is no definite curative treatment for mus-tard lung. The effective treatment regimens consist of oxy-gen administration, use of vaporized moist air, respiratory
physiotherapy, administration of mucolytic agents,
bronchodilators, corticosteroids, and long-acting beta-2
agonists, antioxidants, surfactant, magnesium ions, thera-peutic bronchoscopy, laser therapy, placement of respira-tory stents, early tracheostomy in laryngospasm, and ulti-mately lung transplantation. High-resolution CT of the lung
is the most accurate modality for the evaluation of the lung
parenchyma and bronchi. The treatment efficacy of patients
exposed to mustard gas depends on patient conditions (acute
or chronic, upper or lower respiratory tract involvement).
There are various treatment protocols, but unfortunately
none of them is definitely curable.
Key words: Lung injury; Chemical warfare; Mustard gas
Citation
ID:
38626
Ref Key:
mansour2013longtermchinese