Anesthetic gases and occupationally exposed workers

•Chemicals in anesthetic gases may pollute operating rooms with exposure for workers.•Inhaled anesthetics undergo processes of metabolism and interact with target organs.•The link between health effects and occupational exposure to anesthetics is unclear.•We study whether exposure to anesthetics alter blood parameters in exposed workers.

The aim of this study is to estimate whether the occupational exposure to low dose anesthetic gases could cause alterations of blood parameters in health care workers. 119 exposed subjects and 184 not exposed controls were included in the study. Each worker underwent the complete blood count test (CBC), proteinaemia, leukocyte count, serum lipids, liver and kidney blood markers.The liver blood markers show statistically significant differences in health care workers compared with controls (p < 0.05), a statistically significant decrease in neutrophils and an increase of lymphocytes in health care workers compared with controls (p < 0.05). The prevalence of values outside the range for GPT, GGT, total bilirubin, lymphocytes and neutrophils was statistically significant in health care workers compared with controls (p < 0.05). The results suggest that occupational exposure to low dose anesthetic gases could influence some haematochemical hepatic and hematopoietic parameters in exposed health care workers.