Popcorn Lung: the Discovery of a New Disease
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00027235. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Recently, an epidemic of pulmonary disease has been recognized among workers in a popcorn factory in Jasper, Missouri. The exposure agent has not yet been identified, but suspects include butter flavoring and the powdered salt used in the mixing room. This disease resembles "Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome", an illness that makes it difficult to breathe. Of the 117 workers studied, one year later, 25 subjects whom were working in the mixing room or in the microwave packaging area have had decreases in lung function seven times the norm for their age. Industrial hygiene experts revealed that dust concentrations of salt and other flavorings were much higher in the mixing room compared to the office and outdoor work areas. Recently, rats were exposed to vapors created by heating the butter flavor compound obtained from this plant. Six-hour exposure to vapors at very high concentration resulted in significant damage to the breathing apparatus. Thus, there is clinical, epidemiological, and animal toxicity data that appears to implicate some constituent present during the mixing of the butter flavoring, salt, and oil causing a form of obstructive airway disease that has been rapidly progressive in a number of workers. It is not clear what the pathophysiologic nature of this entity is, though it resembles Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome. It is not known what the long term consequence of this will be on the active workers, nor is it clear whether preventive measures taken to reduce exposures in the mixing room and elsewhere in the plant are going to be effective.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT00027235
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Observational
- Phase
- Not listed
- Enrollment
- Not listed
Conditions and interventions
Interventions
Not listed
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 65 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Not listed
- Primary completion
- Not listed
- Completion
- Not listed
- Last update posted
- Jun 23, 2005
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washington University, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine | St Louis | Missouri | 63110 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00027235, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Jun 23, 2005 · Synced Sep 25, 2026
Related: full search, browse by condition, browse by drug or therapy, browse by sponsor, browse by U.S. city.
Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT00027235 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.