3D printing may cause asthma or hypersensitivity pneumonitis

3D printing is a relatively new technology which may be causing occupational asthma, or perhaps hypersensitivity pneumonitis. This case report shows asthma developing after what was probably high exposure to heated acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS), with some improvement when switching to polylactic acid filaments. Unfortunately specific challenge was not done. There is an additional case report of hypersensitivity pneumonitis in a 3D printer using heated nylon, with good histology but no objective evidence of cause and effect.

References

	House R, Rajaram N, Tarlo SM, Case report of asthma associated with 3D printing, Occup Med, 2017;67:652-654,https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqx129

	Wojtyla S, Baran PKT, Is 3D printing safe? Analysis of the thermal treatment of thermoplastics: ABS, PLA, PET, and nylon, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 2017;14:D80-D85,https://doi.org/10.1080/15459624.2017.1285489

	Johannes J, Rezayat T, Wallace WD, Lynch JP, Chronic Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis Associated with Inhaled Exposure to Nylon Powder for 3-D Printing: A Variant of Nylon Flock Worker's Lung Disease? , Am J Respir Crit Care Med, 2016;193:A7071,http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1164/ajrccm-conference.2016.193.1_MeetingAbstracts.A7071

Comments

I have just been diagnosed with fibrotic hypersensitivity pneumonitis. I am a 72 year old female. My husband had been doing large amounts of 3d printing in our home with PLA filiment. We had no idea...

3/10/2023