Occupational and biological monitoring of workers exposed to airborne dust in Gol-e-Gohar Iron Ore mine: A Case-Control Study

Background and aims: Mining is categorized with considerable exposure to airborne contaminations. Regarding the high prevalence of diseases and the high population of workers in iron ore mines, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of miners’ exposure to respirable dust compounds on the serum Malondialdehyde (MDA) levels. Methods: In this study, 92 non-smoker healthy workers of Gol-e-Gohar Iron Ore mine was selected as exposed and 48 office workers were selected as the control group. Personal sampling of the workers was carried out to determine the amount of respirable dust and iron compounds according to standard methods such as NIOSH0600 and OSHA-Id121 respectively. Serum MDA was measured by an assay ZellBio GmbH kit. The correlation between exposures to respirable dust and iron compounds with serum MDA levels was determined by the statistical test. Results: The exposure levels of respirable dust and iron compounds, as well as serum serum MDA level in the exposed group, were significantly higher than the control group(p <0.001). The result of this study showed that the positive correlation between exposure to respirable dust and iron compounds in exposed group but there were no significant correlation between exposure to respirable dust and iron compounds with serum MDA. Conclusion: Despite the excessive exposure of workers to respirable dust and iron compounds, there was no statistical correlation of either exposures to mentioned compounds with serum MDA. Due significantly statistically higher serum MDA levels in the exposed group compared to those in the control group, a more comprehensive study investigating larger population is recommended ...