Acute Airway Responses to Hair-Spray Preparations

Abstract

Acute exposures (20 seconds) to hair-spray preparations A, B and C caused significant decreases of maximum expiratory flow rates at low lung volumes in healthy men and women. Peak expiratory flow rates were reduced slightly after hair spray A only. The decreases were more pronounced on partial than on maximal expiratory flow-volume curves. On the partial curves, flow at mid-vital capacity decreased on the average 22 per cent immediately after exposure to spray A (16 subjects), 21 per cent after spray B (16 subjects), 29 per cent after spray C (nine subjects) and 4 per cent after placebo spray. These changes suggest that hair sprays cause acute, reversible narrowing of small airways. The chemical nature of the active ingredient (or ingredients) in hair sprays is not known; their mode of action may involve histamine release from lung tissue or a direct effect on airway smooth muscle, or both. Controlled inhalation studies in man should be required as part of the toxicologic evaluation of consumer products that may pose inhalation hazards. (N Engl J Med 290:660–663, 1974)