RESUMO
Exposure to certain industrial agents has been thought to have carcinogenic potential, both for employees who work closely with agents and for the general population that comes into contact with them. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the changes at the cellular level or at the level of cellular metabolism products present in the biological fluid, and to detect early stages of the carcinogenic process resulting from the exposure of industrial environmental hazards. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), alpha-fetoproteins (AFP), and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) were measured in sera of workers (n = 51), who were divided into 4 groups: group I, workers exposed to phenol; group II, workers exposed to formaldehyde; group III, workers exposed to urea; and group IV, workers exposed to mixed vapor, plus a reference control healthy group (n = 15). The results showed that 75% of the workers exposed to phenol, 75% of the workers exposed to urea, 83.3% of workers exposed to formalin, and 92.3% of the workers exposed to mixed vapors had raised values of serum CEA (S-CEA) above normal value of the control group. Also, 23% of workers exposed to mixed vapors, 44% of workers exposed to formalin, 50% of workers exposed to phenol, and 62.5% of workers exposed to urea had raised values of serum AFP (S-AFP) above normal value of control group. Finally, 16.6% of workers exposed to phenol, 23% of workers exposed to mixed vapors, and 33.3% of workers exposed to formalin had raised values of serum PSA (S-PSA) above the normal value of control group; there were no raised values of S-PSA in workers exposed to urea. No significant difference was found in the activities of AST and ALT in group I, but a highly significant increase was found in the AST activities for groups II and IV and the ALT activities for groups III and IV. A significant difference was found in the activity of ALT in group II and in AST for group III. There was no significant difference in the levels of albumin in groups I, II, and III, whereas albumin levels were significantly decreased in group IV. No significant change was found in the level of urea and creatinine in all groups except for group III, where serum levels of creatinine were significantly decreased. From our findings, we concluded that S-CEA can be used as an important prognostic screening marker for early prediction for malignancy, and for management of workers with lung cancer who are exposed to the environmental hazards in industrial factories. Furthermore, S-AFP can be used also as a biomarker if it is carried out and correlated with S-CEA.
