Assessment of air pollution effects in the subjects of Khartoum industrial area, Sudan via cytological interpretations

The study was conducted to assess the air pollution-related lung cellular proliferative activity and inflammatory cells infiltrate among Sudanese subjects, who worked at least 8 hours per day. A total of seventy-five workers who worked for at least 5 years in the polluted area were included, sputum/ blood samples were collected to evaluate the cytological atypia and metaplasia.Out of 75 subjects, Cytological atypia and metaplasia were detected among 8% and 16% of the participant respectively, and such types of changes due to the exposure of occupational air pollution were found to be statistically significant (P= 0.01 ). Similarly, acute and chronic inflammatory cells infiltrate were identified among 10.7% and 14.7% of the study subject respectively; the changes was statistically significant compared to control (P= 0.001). Exposure to occupational air pollutant was associated with alteration in cells of lungs such atypia, acute and chronic inflammatory cells. This finding supports the earlier studies that long exposure to air pollutants is associated to lung atypical alterations. Keywords: Lung epithelial, air pollution hazards, Sudan