Espessura da retina e visão de cores em trabalhadores expostos cronicamente a mistura de solventes orgânicos

Abstract

In many countries, car tanks are filled by workers who inhale the vapor of an admixture of organic solvents. Several neurobehavioral, motor and sensory losses have been associated with the exposure to organic solvents, including the color vision. We aimed to measure the retinal thickness in the macular and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) regions and the color vision of gas station workers. Objective. We compared the visual evaluation of twenty-two workers and twenty healthy and non-exposed subjects. Both groups were age- and sex-matched. The visual outcomes were the retinal thickness in nine fields in the macular region, in four fields in the RNFL region, and the performance of hue ordering in two color vision tests (Farnsworth D-15 and Lanthony desaturated D-15 tests). We proceeded with simple and multiple linear correlations with age and duration of the exposure. All the workers had between 12 and 120 months of exposure and their ages ranged between 20 and 52 years. Results. We observed that for many macular fields (specially the inner fields) and for most of the RNFL fields, the thinner measurement of the workers was smaller than the controls and the thicker measurements of the workers. The color vision performance of the workers was impaired only in the Lanthony desaturated D-15 test compared to the controls. We observed that controls had no significant linear correlation between age and most of the visual outcomes, but the exposed workers had a significant linear correlation between age and the visual outcomes. We also observed a significant linear correlation between the combination of age and exposure duration and color vision performance in the Lanthony desaturated D-15 test, which was not observed considering the isolated variables. Conclusion. We concluded the existence of retinal structural changes in organic solvent exposed workers and that the exposure could impair the effects of age on the visual outcomes we have studied