Cardiovascular risk in rotogravure industry.

Abstract

To verify whether the occupational hazards in the rotogravure industry can be associated with cardiovascular effects. We evaluated cardiovascular parameters and audiometric tests and analyzed noise, solvents, and shift work in 44 exposed and 44 unexposed workers. Unlike unexposed workers, the rotogravure workers showed significant increase of mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) values (P = 0.019; P = 0.003), higher frequency of hypertension (P = 0.002) and electrocardiographic abnormalities (P = 0.0001), significant reduction or no variation of BP response to orthostatism (P = 0.0001), and association between high levels of noise and diastolic blood pressure (P = 0.0067). Subjects with hearing loss showed high frequency of hypertension and a reduction or no variation of BP response to orthostatism (both P = 0.05). Data obtained suggest that these are the effects on the cardiovascular system of rotogravure workers who are exposed to noise.