Biological Indicators in the Exposure Evaluation in Highly Contaminated Environment

摘要

The implementation of new technologies in the modern world improves work safety conditions and results with the effective reduction of majority of the classic harmful factors present in the work environment. The same technological progress results unfortunately in dissemination of the simultaneous exposure to the multiple chemicals. The rapid development of technologies makes the early epidemiological research of the results of occupational exposure to the new combination of chemicals very difficult, if possible. The problem exists worldwide, however especially strongly in the Middle European countries that in the process of the economical changes are less prepared for the proper monitoring of the work environment in the course of economical and technological changes. Some of the chemicals we meet in the work environment are or could be carcinogen or potentially carcinogen and mutagen factors. In Poland for example the frequency of deaths in the result of oncological illnesses is two times higher than world average, and in male population even triple times higher. In comparison to the sixties participation of cancer caused deaths in the general deaths number was doubled and the perspective for further years seems not to be very optimistic. According the Governmental Demographic Council (Raport 1995, 1997) in 2010 cancer caused deaths participation in the general number of deaths in Poland may increase from 40% for women and 80% for men. The great part of oncological illnesses is in direct relation to the environmental and occupational harmful factors. Aromatic hydrocarbons are one of the groups most commonly met in the occupational environment that worker exposure to may result the cancer process. In the petrochemical industry as well as petrochemical transportation enterprises nearly every worker is exposed to the carcinogens. The harmful chemical concentrations vary dependably the technological operation, shift part or even the day of the week and/or month. In he described situation the classic methods of the valuation of worker exposure are not sufficient arid may result significant errors in estimation of health effect of the exposure. The commonly accepted procedures of monitoring harmful chemicals in occupational environment focuses on the measurement of the chemical concentration in the air and is usually performed as the series of samples collections. In the result we could obtain the average concentration level. The described procedure is accepted and effective for the workplaces of stable or repetitive operation scheme but is unaccepted when the operation scheme is accidental. The alternative for the classic monitoring method seems to be BEI (Biological Exposure Indicator) monitoring. We could find a lot of examples of positive results of BEI's implementation to the monitoring of human exposure (Kneip 1988), therefore majority of them focused on evaluation of the particular BEI reliability in control of effective or potential health effect of exposure (ACGIH 1997). The goal of this study is to develop and validate major biological exposure indicators of aromatic hydrocarbons - BTX group in the multiple and different levels concentration of the chemicals.