Introduction: The aim of our study is to compare liver damage in "outdoor" environment technicians, a category occupationally exposed, and in "indoor" workers.
Materials and methods: We studied 142 male technicians of the environment exposed to urban pollution and 142 male "indoor" workers not exposed. We compared mean and standard deviation of the following liver parameters: glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamic pyruvic transaminase (GPT), gamma-glutamyl-traspeptidasi (γGT) and alkaline phosphatase (PHA), total bilirubin (TB) and direct (DB). We made the two groups comparable for age, length of service, BMI, alcohol consumption and smoking habits, and excluded the workers who presented confounding factors.
Results: We found statistically significant differences about the levels of γGT, PHA, GPT and albumin between the "outdoor" workers exposed and the "indoor" control group. In the outdoor group we observed statistically significant values, GPT (51.8 ± 30.6 I.U./l vs. 30 ± 22.3 I.U./l; p = 0.000), γ-GT (42.2 ± 29.4 I.U./l vs. 22.4 ± 20.7 I.U./l; p = 0.000) and PHA (75.7 ± 20.6 I.U./l vs. 59.1 ± 19.6 I.U./l; p= 0.000) compared to the unexposed group. No statistically significant difference emerged between the averages for the values of GOT (25.3 ± 20.7 I.U./l vs. 26 ± 17.7 I.U./l; p = 0.736) in two groups.
Conclusions: It clearly emerges that the contaminants may alter the values of liver tests after prolonged exposure.
Keywords: Air pollution; Liver; Liver enzymes; Particulate matter; Workers "indoor"; Workers "outdoor".