Occupational liver injury

Abstract

Epidemiological studies have mapped the occurrence of hepatitis B among health personnel with the use of specific serologic markers and thereby made rational preventive precautions possible. Follow-up studies have demonstrated the effect of this prevention, and the newly developed hepatitis B vaccine has further improved the possibilities for effective prophylaxis against occupational hepatitis B. On the other hand, there is the chemically induced occupational liver damage. Only a few of the thousands of industrially used chemicals have been sufficiently investigated for hepatotoxicity and the list of suspected and confirmed hepatotoxic agents is still growing. The worrisome example of vinylchloride-induced serious liver disease among PVC-workers, revealed after 42 years of industrial use by alert clinicians, calls for intensified activities in the field of occupational hepatotoxicity. However, the clinical, biochemical, and morphological features of liver disease are often vague and unspecific. A non-invasive, convenient quantitative liver function test is needed. Circumstantial evidence and a few epidemiological studies suggest that part of the so-called cryptogenic liver diseases, such as liver cirrhosis, may be caused by occupational exposure to chemicals. This should be further studies. Animal experiments have shown that one chemical agent may potentiate the hepatotoxic effect of another chemical agent. This should be the subject of investigations in the work environment, where exposure to various chemicals is the rule rather than the exception. Alcohol consumption may also interfere with the hepatotoxicity of occupationally used chemicals.

Examination of the relationships between environmental exposures to volatile organic compounds and biochemical liver tests: Application of canonical correlation analysis

“…Although the biochemical tests may indicate different biological responses to liver injury, the combination of different tests would capture more information in certain liver damage/response than one individual biochemical liver test. Furthermore, the cause of liver damage may lie in a number of factors rather than in isolated exposure (Dossing & Skinjob, 1985; Chen, Wang, Tsai & Chao, 1997). In most settings, exposures occur to mixtures of solvents.…”

Reactive Oxygen Species Play a Central Role in Hexavalent Chromium-Induced Apoptosis in Hep3B Cells without the Functional Roles of p53 and Caspase-3

“…The liver tissue biopsy collected from Chromate production workers showed significant morphological and functional abnormalities [14]. Besides, occupational epidemiological survey also revealed that chromium could lead to liver injury [15]. p53 is a nuclear phosphoprotein of 393 amino acids involved in the regulation of cell proliferation and death [16].…”

Alterações hepáticas em trabalhadores do refino do petróleo

“…Alterações hepáticas podem estar relacionadas à exposição a diversas substâncias de natureza medicamentosa ou produtos utilizados em indústrias 1 2 . Estudos epidemiológicos têm mostrado resultados contraditórios sobre a associação entre exposição ambiental ou ocupacional e alteração hepática, traduzida por alterações laboratoriais 3 gama-glutamil transpeptidase (GGT) em trabalhadores da RLAM, associando-a ao consumo de álcool. Análises subseqüentes deste banco de dados 7 permitiram estimar que a prevalência destas alterações enzimáticas, no universo de trabalhadores desta refinaria, era de 38%.…”