Ocular discomfort and conjunctival alterations in operating room workers. A single-institution pilot study

Objectives: The aim of this pilot study was to relate the eye symptoms comp lained of by subjects working in the operating rooms of a hospital in south ern Italy, with the observations of alterations of the ocular surface. Meth ods: An epidemiological study was carried out by a questionnaire aimed at i nvestigating the prevalence of ocular discomfort symptoms among 213 subject s working in operating rooms and 40 subjects working in the wards. The inve stigated symptoms were the following: tiredness, heaviness, burning, rednes s, tearing, itching, blinking, foreign body sensation, and photophobia. A r andomised comparative study of the ocular surface and conjunctival cytology was also carried out, comparing two groups of age- and gender-matched subj ects. Group 1 included 24 subjects randomly chosen from the operating room workers with ocular discomfort symptoms; group 2 included ten subjects rand omly enrolled from hospital personnel working in the wards. Ophthalmologica l examination of the ocular surface was performed on each subject in the fo llowing order: slit-lamp examination, break-up time (BUT) of the pre-cornea l tear him, corneal fluorescein stain, lachrymal basal secretion test, conj unctival impression cytology. Results: A high prevalence (72.3%) of ocular discomfort symptoms was reported by operating room workers, while in ward p ersonnel the prevalence was 55% (P = 0.04). The ocular tests showed that th e conjunctival features and BUT were statistically significantly altered in subjects in group 1. Also, the conjunctival impression cytology study show ed statistically significant alterations of all the investigated parameters : specimen cellularity, cell-to-cell contacts, nucleus/cytoplasm ratio, chr omatin pattern, goblet cell distribution, keratinisation and the total cyto logical score. Conclusions: Our results show that self-reported eye complai nts and ocular surface alterations have a high prevalence in subjects worki ng in the operating rooms. This seems to indicate that the operating room e nvironment could play a role in the onset of the eye disturbances.