Time to Onset of Paresthesia Among Community Members Exposed to the World Trade Center Disaster

Overview

Journal Int J Environ Res Public Health

Publisher MDPI

Specialties Environmental Health
Public Health

Date 2019 Apr 25

PMID 31013580

Citations 6

Authors

Sujata Thawani

Bin Wang

Yongzhao Shao

Joan Reibman

Michael Marmor

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We examined whether time to onset of paresthesia was associated with indicators of severity of World Trade Center (WTC) exposure. We analyzed data from 3411 patients from the Bellevue Hospital-WTC Environmental Health Center. Paresthesia was defined as present if the symptom occurred in the lower extremities with frequency "often" or "almost continuous." We plotted hazard functions and used the log-rank test to compare time to onset of paresthesia between different exposure groups. We also used Cox regression analysis to examine risk factors for time-to-paresthesia after 9/11/2001 and calculate hazard ratios adjusted for potential confounders. We found significantly elevated hazard ratios for paresthesia for (a) working in a job that required cleaning of WTC dust in the workplace; and (b) being heavily exposed to WTC dust on September 11, 2001, after adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and body mass index. These observational data are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to WTC dust or some other aspect of cleaning WTC dust in the workplace, is associated with neuropathy and paresthesia. Further neurological evaluations of this and other WTC-exposed populations is warranted.

Citing Articles

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Mediates the Association between Traumatic World Trade Center Dust Cloud Exposure and Ongoing Systemic Inflammation in Community Members.

Zhang Y, Rosen R, Reibman J, Shao Y Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022; 19(14).

PMID: 35886474 PMC: 9322679. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph19148622.

Health effects following exposure to dust from the World Trade Center disaster: An update.

Mears M, Aslaner D, Barson C, Cohen M, Gorr M, Wold L Life Sci. 2021; 289:120147.

PMID: 34785191 PMC: 8791014. DOI: 10.1016/j.lfs.2021.120147.

The Development of a WTC Environmental Health Center Pan-Cancer Database.

Shao Y, Durmus N, Zhang Y, Pehlivan S, Fernandez-Beros M, Umana L Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021; 18(4).

PMID: 33572220 PMC: 7916067. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18041646.

Case-Control Study of Paresthesia Among World Trade Center-Exposed Community Members.

Marmor M, Thawani S, Cotrina M, Shao Y, Wong E, Stecker M J Occup Environ Med. 2020; 62(4):307-316.

PMID: 32049876 PMC: 7113112. DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000001828.

Editorial for "Long-Term Health Effects of the 9/11 Disaster" in , 2019.

Brackbill R, Graber J, Robison W Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019; 16(18).

PMID: 31500226 PMC: 6765956. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph16183289.

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