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| United Kingdom Beryllium Registry: Mortality and Autopsy Study W. Jones Williams Section of Respiratory Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine, South Glamorgan, United Kingdom Abstract
This report is based on 30 deaths from chronic beryllium disease (CBD) in the United Kingdom with details of 19 autopsies. The majority were fiuorescent lamp workers and machinists who died from respiratory failure. There were no cases of lung cancer. The survival times ranged from less than 1 to 29 years and was longest in machinists. All of the workers showed interstitial pulmonary fibrosis with varying degrees of cystic change. The majority showed hyalinized, and a few active sarcoid-type, granulomas. Extrathoracic granulomas, as in a U.K. sarcoid autopsy series, were rare. A notable difference was the absence of myocardial involvement in CBD compared to an incidence of 20% in the sarcoid autopsies. The detection of beryllium in the criteria for diagnosis is emphasized and the cases classified as definite include 12 of 19 positive analysis, 6 of 19, negative or unavailable analysis. The remaining case was classified as dubious because, despite a positive analysis, granulomas were absent. The main differential diagnosis is sarcoidosis. -- Environ Health Perspect 104(Suppl 5) :949-951 (1996) Key words: autopsy, chronic beryllium disease, granuloma, diagnostic criteria, sarcoidosis
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