Background: There has been an increase in proportion of workers suffering from occupational diseases compared to past. Only limited studies have been conducted to evaluate the pulmonary functions of carpenters, exposed to wood dust. Hence the present study was undertaken to find out any functional impairment in carpenters due to their occupational environment.Methods: Study was done in 300 subjects who were divided into two groups of 150 each. One group comprised carpenters with minimum 5 years exposure to wood dust. Other group comprised matching healthy subjects who served as controls. Pulmonary function parameters were recorded from all subjects. Parameters recorded were SlowVital Capacity (SVC), Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second (FEV1), and Peak Expiratory flow Rate (PEFR).  ‘Knudson and Collagens’ standard reference values for south Indians were used here for interpretation. Statistical analysis of the data of study subjects and the controls were done by using student’s ‘t’ test. The level of significance was fixed as 5%.Results: A statistically significant reduction in SVC, FVC, FEV1and PEFR was seen in the study group compared to control group. FEV1/FVC was less than 80% of the predicted values in 8% of the study population. Seventeen percentage of the study population had less than 80% of predicted value of both FEV1 and FVC with normal FEV1/FVC.Conclusions: Lung functions of carpenters show statistically significant reduction compared to normal healthy adults. This could be due to their exposure to wood dust.

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Background: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation can develop acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in COPD exacerbation is often under diagnosed. Objectives: Our study assessed the incidence of ACS in patients with COPD exacerbation, the risk factors associated with it and 28 day allcause mortality of patients with COPD exacerbation. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted on consecutive patients admitted with COPD exacerbation from February 2016 to August 2017. They were monitored during the hospital stay for occurrence of ACS and followed up till 28 days. Results: 298 patients were evaluated. Incidence of ACS was 7.71%. ACS was commoner in patients with severe COPD (65.21% Vs 34.78%), diabetes mellitus (18.98% Vs 3.6%, p= 0.001) and systemic hypertension (12.5% Vs 5.44%, p= 0.03). Patients with ACS had a higher mean age (69.65 Vs 62.98yrs, p=0.0001) and mean number of previous exacerbations (1.82 Vs 1.60, p=0.032) but lower mean forced expiratory volume in 1 st second (32.3ml Vs 56.25ml, p=0.001).Hypoxic patients were at higher risk for developing ACS (14.71% Vs 5.65%, p=0.013). The 28-day all-cause mortality was 15.77% and was higher among patients with severe COPD compared with mild COPD (4.36% Vs 3.35%)and those with ACS compared with no ACS (34.78% Vs 14.18%, p= 0.02). Conclusion: Incidence of ACS in COPD exacerbation was high. More care needs to be exercised to identify cardiac events and thus reduce the mortality and morbidity of COPD patients.