Doctors are reporting that some soldiers have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with an untreatable lung disease, possibly caused by inhaling toxic material.
According to Dr. Robert Miller of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., the illness is rare in otherwise healthy young people. His analysis along with others from the New England Journal of Medicine can’t show how common the condition is in the troops nor positively identify its cause. But 28 of the 38 diagnosed soldiers had been exposed to a sulfur-mine fire near Mosul, Iraq, in 2003. That suggests they inhaled a significant dose of sulfur dioxide, a known cause of the lung disease, called constrictive bronchiolitis. Dust storms and the burning of waste in pits may also have played a role.
The soldiers, referred to Vanderbilt from Blanchfield Army Hospital at Fort Campbell, Ky., were evaluated between 2004 and 2009. The diagnoses were made after lung biopsies. At least half the soldiers have left the service with a disability rating. The researchers said they have counted nine more cases since 2009.
In an email, R. Craig Postlewaite of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense and two other Army medical experts said they had “some concerns” about the lung biopsy procedures and the diagnoses. They said they’re working with several authors of the report and others to do further research.
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