Intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery in highway toll collectors

✍ Scribed by Besir Erdogmus; Burhan Yazici; Ali Nihat Annakkaya; Cahit Bilgin; Alp Alper Safak; Peri Arbak; Ali Tugay

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 135 KB
• Volume: 34
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0091-2751
• DOI: 10.1002/jcu.20276

✦ Synopsis

Purpose:

To assess the effects of exposure to exhaust particles on intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery in highway toll collectors.

Methods:

Sixty-one highway toll collectors (htcs) between 24 and 56 years of age (mean, 36.2 +/- 7.3) and 48 controls between 24 and 64 years of age (mean, 42.6 +/- 10.6) were evaluated with gray-scale sonography to measure intima-media thickness (imt) of the common carotid artery (cca). subgroups were categorized according to duration of exhaust exposure and further divided according to tobacco use.

Results:

Cca imt was higher (0.8 +/- 0.2 mm) in htcs than in the control group (0.6 +/- 0.1 mm; p < 0.001) and remained higher when subgroups with similar smoking habits were compared. in htcs, imt was greater when the number of years working in tollbooths was greater (p = 0.023). imt was lower in htcs with an exposure duration of < 10 years compared with a duration of 10-20 years (p = 0.017) or > 20 years (p value not significant).

Conclusion:

Air pollution has a widely acknowledged negative effect on humans. this study confirms that exposure to exhaust particles might cause wall thickening of carotid arteries.