Analysis on the characteristics and liver function of occupational hepatotoxicants exposed population / 中国职业医学

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the characteristics and liver function of the population with occupational exposure to hepatotoxicants. Methods A total of 17 093 workers with occupational hepatotoxicants exposure who underwent occupational medical examination during their employment in a occupational medical examination institution of Shanghai in 2021 were selected as the research subjects by judgement sampling method. Occupational medical examination data were collected, and the prevalence of abnormal liver function and fatty liver were analyzed. The association between hepatotoxicants exposure and abnormal liver function were analyzed. Results The median and the 0th-100th percentiles of the duration of exposure to hepatotoxicants was 6.5(1.0-42.0) years. The prevalence of fatty liver was 48.4% and the incidence of abnormal liver function was 23.7%. Among the workers with fatty liver, the prevalence of abnormal liver function was higher in workers exposed to metals, metalloids and their compounds than in unexposed workers (33.9% vs 30.0%, P<0.01). The results of multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that the risk of abnormal liver function increased with the number of different hepatotoxicants mixed exposures (all P<0.01), after correcting for confounding factors including gender, age, years of exposure, marital status, drinking, hypertension, fatty liver and blood sugar. Conclusion Exposure to hepatotoxicants is a risk factor for abnormal liver function. The more diverse types of hepatotoxicants an individual is exposed to, the stronger the association with this risk.