Abstract
The authors present a summary of current knowledge on asthma caused by diisocyanates in workers under occupational exposure and introduce basic characteristics of these chemicals widely used in industry. Although they represent one of the main cause of occupational bronchial asthma (AB) in developed industrial countries, the number of reported asthma caused by diisocyanates is still relatively low in the Czech Republic ? it represents less than ten percents of all reported occupational asthma.
One of the possible reasons is demanding diagnostics and assessment of occupational impact of chemical noxae with combined effect mechanism characteristic of low-molecular diisocyanates. Studies concerned with presented topics support the concept that AB caused by diisocyanates shows clinical features of both atopic and nonatopic asthma.