In this paper it was investigated the micronuclei frequency in exfoliated oral mucosa cells in shoe shop workers in the city of Pelotas, RS. The study counted on 54 shoe workers exposed to glue and solvents and 54 controls. It was evaluated the incidence of cells with micronucleus (CMN), bi-nucleus (CBN), linked nucleus (CLN) and total amount of anomalies (TAA), in 2000 cells per person. A database was created in the SPSS "for Windows" software using the Mann-Whitney U, p<0.05 test. The average of anomalies among shoe workers was 8.69±6.49CMN; 8.85±4.92CBN; 5.78±4.78CNL; 23.31±10.01TA, in the controlled 4.00±5.05CMN; 4.63±4.35CBN; 4.76±5.00CNL; 13.39±9.43TA (p=0.0001; p=0.0001; p=0.144 and p=0.0001 respectively). It was also evaluated the age, gender, time of work, family income, smoke, alcohol beverages, the influence of dermatological, ophthalmological, respiratory and central nervous system (CNS) diseases in the number of cell anomalies. These items did not have any influence. It was only observed that among the age group of 15 to 29 years old the number of CNL was bigger than among the age group of 45 to 72. Among those with time of work of 0.1 and 10 years presented a higher CNM than in the other group range.
Shoe shop workers; Micronucleus; Genotoxicity
