[Skin reactivity and the biological assessment of chromium exposure]

Subject to the examination are 140 workers from the plant for hydraulic products "Iv. Tenev", town of Yambol. The dermatological examination embraces 57 workers from shop 21, 49 from shop 24 and control group of 24 persons. The examination establishes skin changes in 24.6% of the workers from shop 21 and in 38.7% in those from shop 24. In the same workers were proved occupational dermatoses respectively in 5.3% for these of the first shop and in 14.3% for those of the second shop. The results of the test of 10 workers from shop 24 gave positivation of the test with 0.5% chromic anhydride at 10.5%. The studies for toxicokinetics of chromium in the examined workers proved its high values in urine, erythrocytes and nails. Raised chromium levels are established in the urine of those working with chromium in comparison with the control group (p 0.0001). There is a good correlation dependence between the chromium in urine and in erythrocytes (r = 0.71; n = 45%; p < 0.0001). Persons, eliminating significant quantities of chromium in the urine have higher values of chromium in erythrocytes, which shows that the chromium entering the organism of workers in contact with chromium is 6-valent. The connection with the chromium in urine and in nails is more lightly expressed and is statistically insignificant (r = 0.35; n = 29; p < 0.05), which is due to the fact that the chromium in urine reflects the near exposure in time, while chromium in nails--the level of exposure before 6-8 months.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)