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Chronic Bronchitis in Pigeon Fanciers

1990; Elsevier BV; Volume: 98; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1378/chest.98.2.508a

1931-3543

Teresa Carrillo, Felipe Rodrı́guez de Castro, Manuela Cuevas, Pedro Cabrera,

Bird parasitology and diseases

We have read with great interest the paper by Bourke et al (Chest 1969; 95:598-601) in which a high prevalence of chronic bronchitis in pigeon fanciers is suggested. We feel that this report constitutes an important scientific contribution. However, we found several little differences between their series and ours. We have studied 160 pigeon fanciers and only 31 (18.75 percent) had typical delayed symptoms of pigeon breeders disease. This may be a consequence of the structural features of dovecots. These coops are situated on the flat roof of houses and climatic conditions permit a continuous ventilation of them. For that reason, in our country the level of antigenic exposure is probably lower but more sustained than in Scotland. We have found 51 fanciers (31.87 percent) with sensitization to pigeon serum using an ELISA assay.1Ishikawa E Yoshitake S. Use of anti-enzyme for the enzymeimmunoassay of antibodies.in: Ishikawa E Kawai T Miyai K Enzyme immunoassay. Igaku-Shoin, New York1981: 260-272Google Scholar This is a lower degree of sensitization than found by Bourke et al despite the fact that we used a less specific antigen. Twelve (23.5 percent) of these people had chronic bronchitis and ten of them (19.6 percent) were nonsmokers and had no other risk factor for the development of bronchitis. Thereafter, 11.87 percent of the population had chronic bronchitis alone as their only clinical manifestation of possible pigeon-related disease. We also have found that nonsmoking fanciers with chronic bronchitis had significantly higher levels of sensitization to pigeon serum (p<0.001), but they did not differ from other fanciers in either intensity or duration of avian exposure. Moreover, pigeon fanciers who were current cigarette smokers had a significantly lower level of IgG antibody to pigeon serum (p<0.001).2Anderson K Morrison SM Bourke S Boyd G. Effect of cigarette smoking on the specific antibody response in pigeon fanciers.Thorax. 1988; 43: 798-800Crossref PubMed Scopus (33) Google Scholar Regardless of the differences between these series, we agree that chronic bronchitis is an integral part of the clinical spectrum of pigeon breeder’s disease and must be considered a part of the subacute or chronic forms of the disease.