2001/03/01 by Kenneth Donaldson, V. Stone, A. Clouter +2 · 2 citations
Environmental Science · Health Professions · #Air Quality and Health Impacts #Air Quality Monitoring and Forecasting #Noise Effects and Management
paper · pdf · doi:10.1136/oem.58.3.211
openalex publication_date 2001/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
here is a long history of disease caused by inhaled particles that stretches from Agricola and Paracelsus in the 14th century up to the present. The bad old days when these dust related lung diseases were unbridled are gone but as we enter the 21st century a new particle type-the ultrafine particle-has emerged as one with a potential role in causing disease. Ultrafine particles have been the subject of several recent reviews. 2 3 0 c ULTRAFINE PARTICLES Particles that are less than 100 nm in diameter are commonly defined as ultrafine. However, all particle populations that are found in the air are polydispersed-that is, they comprise particles with ranges of diameters that are usually summarised as mean or median diameter. There is no reason at the moment to think that there is much diVerence between a 90 nm and a 110 nm particle in ability to have an adverse eVect and there is little evidence for the cut oV point for the ultrafine eVect. Ultrafine particles are very small compared with the cellular structures and so this may be important in the apparent problems they present to the lung (fig