Cyanide, hydrogen cyanide and its salts are called cyanide. They exist in natural form and are obtained as salts in industry. At low doses they are lethal in minimum exposure time. The nervous system is its primary target organ. After ingestion, contact or inhalation, serious neurotoxic effects appear in humans and animals. Occupational exposure can produce headache, vertigo, vomiting, nausea, thyroid gland alterations, and dermatitis. At high doses and in short time, cyanide exposure can end in death. In very low amounts some cyanide compounds are indispensable for life. Cyanide is located in group D “not classifiable as human carcinogen”. In order to apply preventive measures when working with cyanides and in public health, it is necessary to acknowledge cyanide toxic effects on men and animals.

Medical surveillance via occupational medical examinations is the most widely tool used in prevention and control of job-related diseases. Its management by the occupational physician allows recognition of the occupational disease. By developing programs of preventive-promotional health and occupational examinations the Occupational Health Services make possible early recognition of labor health problems. Their goal is to prevent work-related diseases. Companies must establish and maintain labor health services integrated by specialized physicians in occupational medicine as head of a team that includes occupational nurses, industrial hygiene, and other technicians specialized in labor health-related fields.

Background: Occupational exposure to mercury is associated to mercurialism, a characteristic occupational poisoning. To verify impact of environmental mercury levels improvement would have in gold's refinery workers of a Peruvian auriferous company, we carried out a reengineering program for exposure control. This program included health and hygiene occupational aspects and operation's management active participation. Objective: To study in gold refinery workers variations in indicators of exposure to mercury with environment labor quality improvement. Design: Prospective and descriptive study. Place of study: Occupational Health Service in a Peruvian mining company. Participants: Workers of gold refinery. Interventions: Modification of physician examination methodology, hygienic evaluation and improved conditions of the labor environment. Every six months we quantified the environmental...

In occupational health to control risk magnitude we apply threshold limit values. Man at high altitude has anatomical-physiological variants in his respiratory system; most important are increases in thoracic capacity, pulmonary ventilation, alveolar/capillary diffusion, and arterial oxygen content. Physiological safe work at high altitude consists in the organism not using extra energy to compensate barometric pressure fall. In respiratory occupational toxicology we must initiate correction when ventilatory response to hypobaric hypoxia becomes unsafe and this occurs at 8 000 feet above sea level. Accordingly we should correct exposure limits value applying to work at high altitude. In order to establish safe parameters of toxicological exposition at high altitude it is necessary to investigate these aspects in high altitude workers.

El mercurio, metal pesado ampliamente utilizado por el hombre, es muy tóxico; produce daño al sistema nervioso central, perturbaciones del comportamiento y lesiones renales. Se acumula en todos los seres vivos y no es esencial para ningún proceso biológico. La toxicidad del mercurio está directamente relacionada con su estado químico. El metilmercurio es la forma más dañina, con efectos neurotóxicos en adultos y en fetos de madres expuestas. El mercurio metálico no es menos tóxico. Las sales de mercurio inorgánico afectan directamente al riñón. Clínicamente, en la exposición ocupacional a mercurio se encuentra la triada clásica: temblor, alteración de la personalidad y estomatitis. En los últimos años se ha demostrado también alteración en la visión cromática. La exposición aguda se evalúa midiendo el mercurio en la sangre, mientras que la exposición crónica y...

Worker’s health is the most important fact in heavy metal exposition surveillance. In extractive metallurgy there is exposition to many elements and chemical compounds. Current laboratory technological advances allow us to develop biologic media’s measurements for use in occupational health assessment. Monitoring is measuring, assessing and interpreting biological media and environment parameters, to prevent and avoid health risks. It implies establishing control measures in labor environment defining exposition levels not causing adverse effects on workers. An exposition’s biological indicator doses blood metal or byproducts biotransformation into biological media in order to quantify body chemistry. In kidney toxicity, we use function and citotoxicity indicators, low molecular weight proteins and urinary enzymes. In neurological toxicity, substitute indicators are being developed...

Introduction: Anthropometry is the essential basis for ergonomics, mainly human body’s measures referred to size and shapes. Peruvian mining is located at high altitudes, habitat of ethnic Andean men showing different anthropometry to the sea level man. Objectives: To characterize anthropometrics of a Peruvian Andean Mountain mining workers, native men population, residing and living at 3 000 masl and more. Design: Descriptive, prospective and observational study. Setting: La Oroya Centromin-Peru Enterprise’s Occupational Health Service and its four mining satellite hospitals. Participants: Three thousand healthy native 21 to 60 year-old male mining workers residing in altitudes above 3 500 masl. Interventions: The sample was generated by conglomerate’s random aleatory polyphase model. The study was done between 1984-1994. For normality hypothesis statistical certainty we applied S...

Lead, a ubiquitous heavy metal, has been found in places as unlikely as Greenland’s fossil ice. Egyptians and Hebrews used it. In Spain, Phoenicians c. 2000 BC worked ores of lead. At the end of the XX century, occupational lead’s poisoning became a public health problem in developed countries. In non-developed countries occupational lead poisoning is still frequent. Diagnosis is directed to recognize lead existence at the labor environment and good clinical and occupational documentation. Differential diagnosis considers neurological and abdominal pain syndromes. Both blood lead and zinc-protoporphyrin levels are trustworthy and crucial analysis. In exposed workers, blood-lead can attain 40 ug/100 mL and even 80 ug/100 mL in unhealthy industries workers and zincprotoporphyrin is above 4 ug/g of hemoglobin. Treatment consists mainly in calcium disodium edetate, d-penicillamid lead’...

Silicosis is a pneumoconiosis caused by repeated inhalation of silica dust, characterized by pulmonary fibrosis and a bronchitis component. It is predisposing factor for lung cancer and cause of temporary or permanent work disability. According to its presentation it may be classical, acute, complicated or accelerated. Peru is a mining country with more than 197 000 direct workers in this activity considered at high risk for developing silicosis. Clinical examination, labor history, lung X-rays and spirometry are basic in diagnosis. There is no treatment for silicosis. Prevention is the only known way to avoid it. In addition to collective and personal protection, main preventive action is education of workers and employers on risk of exposure to silica dust.