Abstract:
This is a descriptive study conducted at Khartoum State, at different petroleum
stations and Sudan University of Science and Technology during the period from
June to November 2009. This study aimed to identify the pathological changes in
oral mucosa and presence of phenol in urine among petroleum station workers. The
study group included 200 persons. Divide as follows:
100 specimens were
collected from petroleum station workers who exposed to petroleum products for
more than 5 years, with a daily period of exposure more than 10 hours a day. The
selected group was free of oral lesion and previous history of oral disease. Their
ages ranged between 20 to 62 years. The other 100 specimens were collected from
individuals not exposed to petroleum products.
Smears were prepared, fixed and stained with Papanicolaou stain, then examined
under light microscope. The urine samples taken to assess poisoning degree
resulted from petroleum substance through measuring the phenol in the urine by
using Folin-ciocalteou reagent. The result of urine is shown positive outcomes in
both the targeted groups. The pathological assessment among study group revealed
the following finding: 10% bacterial infection features, 2% fungal infection
features, 6% non specific inflammatory changes, 2% mild diskaryosis and the rest
80% were normal. In other control group found some infections, which may be
related to other confounder factors and not the exposure to petroleum substances.
This study concluded that, there is a positive association between pathological
finding and exposure to petroleum products. However this difference was not
significant statistically. And the presences of phenol in the urine of individuals
exposed to petroleum products are not specific in this study.
This study recommends that, more studies should be conducted to address this
topic as its serious problem we recommend using sputum rather than buccal smear.
For better assessment raise study group should be included and use another method
to detect phenol rather than “Folin-ciocalteou reagent” because it’s qualitative
method and non specific. Is better measuring Urinary phenol by using the
colorimetric quantitative determination method, this give urinary phenol values
corrected for creatinine content. Also we recommended use more than one stain.
