Arsenobetaine and arsenocholine are considered to be non-toxic and are present as a relatively large proportion of total arsenic in seafoods, and they do not respond to hydride generation. The present study describes the effect of seafood consumption on the urinary concentration of hydride-generating arsenic compounds measured by a newly developed flow injection atomic absorption spectrometric (FI-AAS) method. Consumption of plaice, pighvar and tunny resulted in a 2-fold increase, and consumption of mussels produced a 6-fold increase in the urinary level of hydride-generating arsenic compounds. Hence, a person who has consumed mussels may be suspected of being occupationally or environmentally exposed, if the level of consumption of this seafood is unknown. As the FI-AAS method cannot be used to detect arsenobetaine and arsenocholine, the observed increase in urinary concentration of hydride-generating arsenic compounds after consumption of seafood must originate either from hydride-generating arsenic compounds in the seafood or from degraded arsenobetaine or arsenocholine. The present study has demonstrated that both arsenobetaine and arsenocholine are unstable when incubated in daylight in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, i.e., an oxidizing environment. Hence, it is tempting to speculate that arsenobetaine could be converted into hydride-generating arsenic compounds during storage or cooking of seafood. The feasibility of speciation methods based on high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) separation and on-line analysis by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) and FI-AAS was also investigated. The FI-AAS system is approximately 35 times more sensitive to the hydride-generating arsenic species than the ICP-AES system.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Our objective was to evaluate changes in the prevalence of skin problems on the hands among dental technicians during the last 10 years by comparison with results of a previous study, to study whether the presence and location of skin problems could be related to work with acrylates, and to study whether the use of gloves had any influence on the prevalence of the skin problems. A cross-sectional questionnaire study among 192 dental technicians at work was performed using an expanded version of a questionnaire from a Danish survey 10 years ago. The cumulative prevalence of skin problems on the hands was 53%. The 1-year prevalence of skin problems on the hands was 43%. The point prevalence of skin problems on the hands was 36%. These prevalence figures were profoundly higher than the figures reported for the general population, and the figures did not differ from those obtained in the study 10 years ago. The point prevalence of skin problems on the hands among individuals handling acrylates was 38% higher than among individuals who never worked with acrylates. No difference in the occurrence of skin problems was observed between individuals using gloves and individuals who did not use gloves while handling acrylates. The prevalence difference of skin problems on the fingertips was 7.3% between individuals handling acrylates daily or several times a week and individuals handling acrylates less frequently.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A panel of trainees at The Danish School of Dental Technicians was asked to fill in questionnaires 2X a year, to elucidate whether the prevalence of skin problems on their hands increased during the study and to compare the results to the general population. At the beginning of the study, trainees had a prevalence of skin problems not statistically significantly different from that in the general population. 8 months later, an increase of 23% in the prevalence was observed. Compared to the general population the standardized prevalence ratio (SPR) increased to 4.78, and compared to dental technicians at work, an SPR of 0.71 was found after 1 year of study. Very few trainees experienced relief in symptoms during the 1st year of study (5%), whereas 33% developed worse symptoms. The results demonstrate that trainees shortly after beginning their education have the same very high magnitude of skin problems as dental technicians at work. Trainees were exposed to acrylates more extensively than dental technicians. It is far from acceptable that this educational experience involves such a great risk to individuals with no experience or knowledge of the hazards of their occupational environment. Preventive actions are called for, e.g., increased use of encapsulated systems, use of gloves with a well documented protective effect and mandatory courses on the hazardous effects of dental materials.
A European study on styrene exposure was initiated in 1989 to evaluate the health effects of environmental and occupational exposure. A part of this study included the development of an analytical method for use in a biological monitoring program. The urinary metabolites of styrene, mandelic acid (MA) and phenylglyoxylic acid (PGA) were quantitated by a direct and convenient high-performance liquid chromatography method. Urine samples were diluted with eluent and analysed by HPLC with a C8 reversed-phase column and a buffer to acetonitrile (9:1) eluent with a counterion added. The detector used was a variable UV detector and the wavelength was lambda = 210 nm. The method was statistically evaluated by a method evaluation demonstrating no systematic error. The uncertainty was 23.8 mumol/l and 11.5 mumol/l for MA and PGA, respectively. The limit of detection (LOD) of MA is 71.4 mumol/l and the LOD of PGA is 34.5 mumol/l, sufficiently low for the measurement of styrene exposure at a low exposure level. The present study indicates that reference values for MA and PGA are low. The fraction of reference values below LOD was 0.80 for MA and 0.66 for PGA; consequently, the reference values were described by a non-parametric one-sided tolerance interval. The 95% one-sided upper tolerance limits calculated for MA and PGA were 31.0 mumol/mmol creatinine and 20.1 mumol/mmol creatinine, respectively, with the coverage 0.95 +/- 0.045 for both metabolites. The method has been used for biological monitoring in several studies of environmentally and occupationally exposed subjects in concentrations up to 200 mumol/mmol creatinine for MA and 150 mumol/mmol creatinine for PGA.
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