Exposure and risk assessment of urinary trans, trans-Muconic acid in school-age children in the vicinity of a petrochemical complex in Central Taiwan

Frontiers in Public Health

Public Health

Po-Keng Cheng¹  Vinoth Kumar Ponnusamy²  Hsin-I Huang³  Wan-Ting Chang³  Karthikeyan Prakasham⁴  Po-Chin Huang⁵ 

[1] Department of Finance and Cooperative Management, National Taipei University, New Taipei City, Taiwan;Department of Medicinal and Applied Chemistry, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan;Research Center for Precision Environmental Medicine, and Ph.D. Program in Environmental and Occupational Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan;Department of Chemistry, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan;Department of Medical Research, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital (KMUH), Kaohsiung City, Taiwan;National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan;Research Center for Precision Environmental Medicine, and Ph.D. Program in Environmental and Occupational Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan;Research Center for Precision Environmental Medicine, and Ph.D. Program in Environmental and Occupational Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan;National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan;Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan;

关键词: benzene;    children;    petrochemical complex;    trans;    trans-muconic acid;    urine;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpubh.2023.1234823

 received in 2023-06-05, accepted in 2023-08-17,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

School-age children living near large petrochemical factories may be at high risk of exposure to benzene released during manufacturing processes. We aimed to investigate the urinary concentrations of trans, trans-muconic acid (t,t-MA) in school-age children living near a petrochemical complex and to estimate their cumulative risk of benzene exposure. We examined an established cohort (Taiwan Petrochemical Complex Cohort for Children, TPE3C) of school-age children (aged 6–13 years) who lived near large petrochemical factories in central Taiwan between October 2013 and September 2014. The cohort comprised 297 children from five elementary schools, namely S.-C. Branch (n = 63, school A, ~0.9 km), F.-A. (n = 51, school B, ~2.7 km), C.-T. (n = 63, school C, ~5.5 km), M.-L. (n = 54, school D, ~6.9 km), and L.-F. (n = 66, school E, ~8.6 km). We analyzed the urinary t,t-MA levels of each participant and estimated their daily intake of benzene. We also performed multiple regression analysis to investigate potential risk factors for a high urinary t,t-MA level in the study cohort. The median urinary t,t-MA levels and median estimated benzene daily intake of the children from each school were as follows: school A, 64.07 ng/mL, 11.13 μg/kg/day; school B, 61.01 ng/mL, 15.32 μg/kg/day; school C, 59.38 ng/mL, 14.81 μg/kg/day; school D, 42.35 ng/mL, 11.67 μg/kg/day; school E, undetected, 0.14 μg/kg/day. The distance between a school and a petrochemical complex (greater distance: β = −0.26, 95% confidence interval [CI] = −0.52 to 0.00, p = 0.053), and the age of the children (older age: β = −3.44, 95% CI = −5.90 to −1.46, p < 0.001) were identified as potential risk factors. After confounders were adjusted for, the creatinine adjusted urinary t,t-MA levels of the school-age children tended to be lower when the distance between their school and a petrochemical complex was greater.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Cheng, Ponnusamy, Prakasham, Huang, Chang and Huang.