{"id":20751,"date":"2010-09-09T09:10:29","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T13:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=20751"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:39:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:39:00","slug":"wind-instruments-may-cause-lung-disease-in-musicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/09\/wind-instruments-may-cause-lung-disease-in-musicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Wind Instruments May Cause Lung Disease in Musicians"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Mark Metersky. Photo from the UConn Health Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When a 35-year-old professional trombone player came to the Health Center seeking treatment for a chronic cough, the case wasn\u2019t as simple as it first appeared.<\/p>\n

Dr. Mark Metersky<\/a>, director of the Center for Bronchiectasis Care<\/a>, quickly learned that the trombonist had been suffering from the recurring cough for approximately 15 years, and prior physicians had not been able to figure out the cause.<\/p>\n

“He didn\u2019t have the typical symptoms that would cause a chronic cough. For instance, he didn\u2019t have a stuffy, runny nose or esophageal reflux problems,” explains Metersky. “Allergy testing was negative, and a physical exam and chest x-ray were all normal.”<\/p>\n

Environmental causes or side effects from medication were also ruled out. More intense scans and exams still did not reveal the reason for the cough.<\/p>\n

But then the musician told Metersky that his symptoms improved significantly when he did not play his trombone for a couple of weeks. He also noted that the periods of more severe symptoms had been when he was playing more than usual.<\/p>\n

Metersky immediately suspected that his patient was suffering from hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP), a lung condition characterized by shortness of breath and a cough, and that his trombone was the culprit (brass players inhale with the instrument at their mouth between measures).<\/p>\n

An examination of the inside of the instrument showed innumerable whitish plaques, and a further analysis revealed the presence of mold and\/or bacteria contamination.<\/p>\n

A few weeks after the musician began immersing his instrument in 91 percent isopropyl alcohol, his cough went away completely.<\/p>\n

The case intrigued Metersky enough that he decided to study several other musicians and their instruments.<\/p>\n

“All seven musicians had at least one instrument contaminated with either mycobacterial or fungal species previously associated with HP,” he says.<\/p>\n

Metersky speculates that since most brass and wind instruments may harbor large numbers of mold and bacteria, many other musicians may be at risk for HP.<\/p>\n

The study is published in the Sept. 7 issue of CHEST<\/em><\/a>, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A UConn researcher says inhaling mold and bacteria from instruments puts brass musicians at risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-20751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 16:40:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20751"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36855,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20751\/revisions\/36855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20751"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=20751"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}