Clinical Review of Mustard Lung

More than 45,000 of 100,000 exposed patients are suffering from late effects of sulfur mustard (SM) after almost 20 years post-exposure. Respiratory complications of SM exacerbate over time and are the greatest cause of long-term disability in exposed patients. A triad of cough, expectoration and dyspnea has been found to be the main symptoms among patients. Even those who had not developed acute symptoms may suf-fer from late respiratory complications. Pulmonary function test studies have revealed more obstructive patterns than re-striction. High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is supposed to be the diagnostic imaging tool of choice in pa-tients with history of SM exposure while chest x-ray may not be helpful. In contrary to earlier reports of interstitial pulmo-nary fibrosis in these patients, HRCT and pathological studies revealed the diagnosis of bronchiolitis obliterans. Bronchodi-lators and corticosteroids are widely used to resolve respira-tory symptoms of mustard lung. Macrolides and antioxidants may improve respiratory symptoms and pulmonary function. Interferon gamma could improve pulmonary function of SM exposed patients with bronchiolitis