Biochemical and hematological changes among saudi firefighters in the eastern province

Aims: This study aimed to evaluate some relevant serum biochemical and hematological changes in concentration level involved firefighters in comparison to normal controls. Materials and Methods: This study involved two groups of male firefighters to participate in the study. The first group included 50 firefighters from Dammam while the second group included 50 firefighters from Khobar. An additional control group of 50 male nonfirefighters from both cities was included in the study. Blood samples were collected from all participants and investigated for some relevant biochemical, hematological differences and blood heavy metals between the three studied groups. Results: The results obtained showed that there were statistically significant differences in liver function, serum lipid profile, creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase, iron and ferritin, and blood picture in firefighters as compared with normal control group, while there were no statistically significant differences in the levels of blood heavy metals in firefighters as compared to normal controls. These results indicate that fire smoke mainly affects serum biochemical and hematological parameters but does not affect serum heavy metals levels. Conclusion: Such results might point out to the need for more health protective and prophylactic measures to try to avoid such hazardous health effects that might endanger firefighters under their highly drastic working conditions, and firefighters must be under continuous medical follow-up through a standard timetabled medical laboratory investigations to allow for the early detection of any biochemical or hematological changes.