Visual Dysfunction in Workers Exposed to a Mixture of Organic Solvents

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the workers occupationally exposed to a mixture of organic solvents and their visual functions. Here the visual functions included color vision (CV), visual contrast sensitivity (CS) and visual evoked potentials (VEP). Test subjects were 182 workers at 53 furniture factories in the same industrial area of Japan. As control, a group consisted of 96 workers without exposure to any organic solvent was also tested. Exposure assessments were made both by the environmental concentration and biological monitoring. CV and CS tests were carried out for all the subjects. VEP was measured for 21 exposed subjects who were considered to have impaired CV and CS. In the results, the color confusion index (CCI) values of the exposed subjects were significantly higher than that of the age-matched controls ( P