Abstract

Abstract Wheat flour mill dust might cause adverse health effects in exposed workers. The objective of this study was to evaluate the pulmonary functions, hematological parameters and inflammatory markers of workers from different flour mills. The measurement of pulmonary function parameters was performed by using an electronic spirometer on 80 non-smoker male workers from flour mills with mean age of 34.01±8.17 years, mean duration of employment 8.7±4.23 years and 70 unexposed nonsmoker individuals constituted control group. Additionally, the study also determined complete blood count, serum IL-6 and IL-8 for 48 non-smoker male workers from flour mills and 37 unexposed non-smoker individuals’ subjects as control group. Study populations were divided into three groups depending on the nature of job that involved sweepers [high exposure group], packers [intermediate exposure group] and millers [low exposure group]). The results showed a significant decrease (P≤0.05) in values of FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC%, FEF 75% and MVV in sweepers, packers and packers as compared to control. Furthermore, the results indicated a significant prevalence at P≤0.001 of respiratory symptoms such as shortness of breath, cough, phlegm, wheezing, chest pain and chest tightness among in all three job titles as compared to the control group. Also, the hematological parameters revealed significant increased at P≤0.05 in RBCs, Hb and PCV in sweepers and packers compared to the control group. However, the results also showed a significant decrement at P≤0.05 in mean corpuscle hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) and mean corpuscle hemoglobin (MCH) in sweepers and packers compared with the control group. In addition, the study demonstrated a significant increment at P≤0.05 in total leukocytes count for different categories compared with the control group. Also, percentage of eosinophils and absolute eosinophils cell count was significantly increased at P≤0.05 in sweepers and packers. Moreover, serum IL-6 was significant increment in different job categories compared with their control. The results also demonstrated that there was a significantly elevated at P≤0.05 of serum IL-8 in workers compared with control group.