A novel cause for bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia: exposure to paint aerosols in textile workshops.

In this issue of the Journal, ROMERO et al. [1] describe 14 patients with severe organizing pneumonia (OP), which resulted from occupational exposure to aerosolized paint in the textile industry in Spain. This spectacular and highly unusual outbreak of occupational lung disease, of which six workers died, took place in the spring of 1992 in the region of Alcoi in the Autonomous Community of Valencia [2]. This highlights the possible emergence of novel lung diseases from inhalation of toxic substances in the industrial setting, and points to an additional aetiological context for bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP), apart from many other causes for this clinicalpathological entity [3–5].