Efficacy of medical preventive measures for skin lesions in mining industry workers

Introduction. In miners, skin lesions are associated with dysfunction of various morphofunctional skin structures: epidermis; microvasculature; nerves of the dermis and hypodermis. In order to preserve the health of the skin as an independent anatomical unit, a complex of medical preventive measures has been developed, which includes topical and systemic therapy. Objective. To evaluate the efficacy of a complex of medical preventive measures for skin lesions in vibration-exposed miners. Materials and methods. A prospective, single-center, open-label, randomized controlled trial was conducted before and after the implementation of medical preventive measures for skin lesions in miners. The study included vibration-exposed miners ( n = 77) divided into a main group and a control group. Their skin condition dynamics were analyzed through clinical examination and polarized dermoscopy, as well as assessment of skin microcirculation and oxidative metabolism by means of a device combining laser Doppler flowmetry with fluorescence spectroscopy. Statistical processing was performed via generally accepted statistical methods, employing Microsoft Excel 2018 and StatTech v. 4.9.5 software (StatTech, Russia). Results. In the entire cohort of examined patients, a total of 57 (74%) individuals were diagnosed with the following skin diseases: other epidermal thickening, skin appendage diseases, allergic dermatoses, infectious skin diseases, papulosquamous dermatoses, photosensitive dermatoses, and pigmentation disorders. An analysis of clinical and dermoscopic manifestations revealed a significant positive dynamics of the pathological process in the main group ( p < 0.001). Of all subjects, skin microcirculation dysfunction was detected in 55 (71.5%) miners. The main group exhibited a statistically significant increase in the microcirculation parameter ( p = 0.004), a decrease in the fluorescence amplitude of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide ( p = 0.002), and an increase in the oxidative metabolism index ( p < 0.001). Conclusions. The obtained results prove the efficacy of the developed complex of medical preventive measures. These measures can be implemented in addition to traditional methods of secondary prevention and rehabilitation of mining industry workers.