The state of the main vessels in workers of heavy industries

Abstract

Introduction. The prevalence of atherosclerosis in the Russian Federation has been poorly studied due to the large number of population groups. The assessment of the atherosclerosis rate is controversial because of different approaches and combinations of the examined vascular beds, while asymptomatic atherosclerosis is increasingly being detected due to the lack of proper attention of clinicians to patients of the middle group of cardiovascular fatal risk. Materials and methods. Three hundred eighty five long-term labour experience 40 to 55 years workers of the main occupations of the coal and aluminum industry were examined. Using the SCORE scale, 78 miners and 79 metallurgists with average risk from 2 to 4% were identified from the total sample. All cases underwent ultrasound examination of the main arteries. The risk factors included in the fatal risk SCORE scale had been studied. Results. A comparison of the atherosclerotic process of the main arteries in the studied groups revealed a high occurence of multifocal atherosclerosis, to a greater extent in miners – 80.3%, which is significantly less in comparison with aluminum production workers – 54.2%, p=0.020. The share of persons with a lesion of one vascular bed in the form of stenosis among miners significantly exceeded that of metallurgists: 68.0% and 50.6%, p=0.027. The same trend was observed in the brachiocephalic arteries (42.3 vs. 21.5%, p=0.005) and the main arteries of the lower extremities (55.1 vs. 34.2%, p=0.008), respectively. There were no significant differences in the commonly accepted risk factors for atherosclerosis between the groups. Limitations. The study is limited to the number of patients with the signs corresponding to the middle fatal risk group on the SCORE scale. Conclusion. The frequency of atherosclerosis among workers in the main occupations in the coal and aluminum industry, who have a moderate fatal risk, turned out to be extremely high, and to a greater extent in miners, which requires urgent preventive measures and medical supervision. Commonly accepted factors of moderate risk groups according to the SCORE scale of the studied occupational cohort were not leading in the development of atherosclerosis.