Studies on angiopathy due to carbon disulfide. Retinopathy and index of exposure dosages.

The occurrences of retinopathy (microaneurysms/small dot hemorrhages) and the coded resting and postexercise ECG findings suggestive of coronary heart disease (CHD) were studied among 420 Japanese male workers exposed to carbon disulfide and 390 men not exposed to such a solvent. Retinopathy was detected in 24.4% of the exposed group and in 3.8% of the nonexposed group by color fundus photography. Among workers of the former group there was a significant correlation between retinopathy prevalences and the index of exposure dosages (r = 0.925, P less than 0.01). However, correlation between the prevalence of retinopathy and duration of exposure was not so high (r = 0.647, 0.10 less than P less than 0.25). The occurrences of coded resting and postexercise "coronary" ECG findings were not related to the index of exposure dosages. Some risk factors for CHD such as total serum cholesterol, triglycerides, beta-lipoproteins, blood pressure, obesity, and skinfold thickness were simultaneously studied. But these variables did not prove to be important in the development of angiopathy due to carbon disulfide, especially the so-called retinopathia sulfocarbonica.