Objective To investigate the blood cell count and liver and renal function markers in workers engaged in rare earth processing, and to evaluate the influence of occupational exposure to rare earth on blood cell count and liver and renal function of workers.

Methods Environmental monitoring was carried out in rare earth processing factories, and the levels of 15 rare earth elements in environmental particulate matter were measured by acid digestion-ICP-MS.A questionnaire survey was conducted among the workers to collect their occupational histories and other information. An automatic hematology analyzer and an automatic blood biochemical analyzer were used to measure blood cell count in venous blood and changes of liver and renal function indexes in blood. An analysis of variance and the linear regression analysis were used for comparison between groups to analyze the influence of different dust exposure years and posts.

Results There were significant differences in the exposure levels of 12 rare earth elements (yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, and erbium) among boiler workshop, carbon deposition workshop, roasting workshop, and water immersion workshop (chi-square values were 11.17 to 34.66, P < 0.05). The workers in roasting workshop, water immersion workshop, and carbon deposition workshop had significantly lower monocyte count than those in boiler workshop (P < 0.05), and the workers engaged in rare earth processing had the highest numbers of leukocytes, neutrophils, and monocytes in peripheral blood within the first 5.8 years of dust exposure (P < 0.05), which tended to be decreased with the increase in working years (P < 0.05). There was a significant difference in the levels of uric acid between the dust exposure more than 20.5 years group and the dust exposure less than 5.8 years group (P < 0.05), which tended to be increased with the increase of working years.

Conclusion Rare earth exposure has a potential impact on blood cell count and renal function in workers.