Exposure to industrial wideband noise increases connective tissue in the rat liver

• Published in: Noise & health Vol. 14; no. 60; pp. 227 - 229
• Main Authors: Oliveira, Maria João R, Freitas, Diamantino, Carvalho, António P O, Guimarães, Laura, Pinto, Ana, Águas, Artur P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: India Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd 01-09-2012; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt. Ltd; Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications
• Subjects: Animals; Collagen; Connective tissue; Connective Tissue - pathology; Factories; industrial noise; light microscopy; Liver; Liver - pathology; Male; Microscopy; Noise, Occupational - adverse effects; Portugal; Rats; Rats, Wistar; Rodents; Statistical analysis; Textile fabrics; Textile Industry; wideband noise; Portugal
• ISSN: 1463-1741; 1998-4030
• DOI: 10.4103/1463-1741.102959

Rats were daily exposed (eight hours/day) for a period of four weeks to the same high-intensity wideband noise that was recorded before in a large textile plant. Histologic observation of liver sections of the rats was used to perform quantitative comparison of hepatic connective tissue (dyed by Masson trichromic staining) between the noise-exposed and control animals. For that, we have photographed at random centrolobular areas of stained rat liver sections. We found that noise exposure resulted in significant enhancement in the area of collagen-rich connective tissue present in the centrolobular domain of the rat liver. Our data strengthen previous evidence showing that fibrotic transformation is a systemic effect of chronic exposure of rodents and humans to industrial wideband noise.