The carotid intima media thickness in coal miners

Özet

Aim: The cardiovascular diseases are one of the most frequent causes of death in coal miners. Atherosclerosis is the most frequ-ent cause of cardiovascular disease around the world. The subcli-nical atherosclerosis can be diagnosed thanks to the localization of carotid arteries by measuring carotid intima media thickness via Doppler ultrasonography. In this study, the aim was to investi-gate whether the chronic exposure to coal mine dust contributes to atherosclerotic process.Method: The study was designed as a single center, retrospec-tive survey, consisting of 25 young coal miners, 25 veteran coal miners, 25 young people and 25 healthy elderly people who have never exposed to coal mine dusts. The carotid Doppler ultraso-nography, biochemical tests, echocardiography, respiratory func-tion test results were recorded from the files of the cases.Results: There was not any significant difference as for carotid intima- media thickness between coal miners and healthy young group(0.66±0.16 vs 0.65±0.16; p=0.994), while there was a sig-nificant difference between veteran coal miners and healthy el-derly group (0.99±0.09 vs. 0.81±0.13; p<0.05).Conclusion: In this study, it was found that the carotid intima- media thickness, which is used in order to diagnose atherosclero-sis in early stage, increased after chronic exposure to coal mine dust. Therefore, it can be thought that professional questioning may be beneficial while determining the risk factors of individu-als in terms of atherosclerosis.