Diagnosis of Exposure to Chemical Warfare Agents: A Comprehensive Literature Survey 1990-2005

摘要

This report is an update of TNO report PML 2003-A63. In this report an overview is presented of the methods currently available for detection of exposure to a number of chemical warfare agents (CWA), i.e., sulfur mustard, lewisite and nerve agents. Such methods can be applied for various purposes, e.g., diagnosis and dosimetry of exposure of casualties, confirmation of non- exposure, verification of non-adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention, health surveillance, and forensic purposes. The methods are either based on mass spectrometric analysis of urine or plasma metabolites that result from hydrolysis and/or glutathione conjugation (Part 1), or on mass spectrometric or immunochemical analysis of CWA adducts with DNA or proteins (Part 2). Several of the methods have been successfully applied to actual cases.