Accidental exposure to gas emissions from transit goods treated for pest control

Environmental Health

Research

Lygia Therese Budnik¹  Stefan Kloth²  Thomas Göen³  Xaver Baur⁴ 

[1] Division of Occupational Toxicology and Immunology, Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, University of Hamburg, Marckmannstrasse 129 b, Bld. 3, 20539, Hamburg, Germany;Division of Occupational Toxicology and Immunology, Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, University of Hamburg, Marckmannstrasse 129 b, Bld. 3, 20539, Hamburg, Germany;Robert Koch Institute, Unit Strengthening Global Biosecurity, Berlin, Germany;Institute and Outpatient Clinic of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany;Institute for Occupational Medicine, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Charité-School of Medicine, Berlin, Germany;

关键词: Fumigants;    Methyl bromide;    Ethylene oxide;    Hemoglobin adducts;    Past exposure;    Transit goods and production parts;    Off gassing;    Human biomonitoring;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-069X-13-110

 received in 2014-07-31, accepted in 2014-11-26,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundInternational phytosanitary standards ISPM 15 require (since 2007) fumigation or heat treatment for shipping and storage. Those dealing with fumigated freight might be accidentally exposed. In this paper we report a series of three accidents of six storage room workers in a medium sized company regularly importing electronic production parts from abroad.MethodsPatients (n = 6, aged from 32–54 yrs.) and control group (n = 30, mean 40 yrs.) donated blood and urine samples. The fumigants: ethylene oxide, methyl bromide, chloropicrin, ethylene dichloride, other halo-alkanes and solvents were analyzed by headspace gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GCMS). For the quantitation of long term exposure/s, macromolecular reaction products (hemoglobin adducts) were used (with GCMS) as molecular dosimeter; additionally 8-OHdG and circulating mtDNA (cmtDNA) were analyzed as nonspecific biological effect markers.ResultsThe hemoglobin adducts N-methyl valine (MEV) and N-(2-hydroxy ethyl) valine (HEV) were elevated after exposure to the alkylating chemicals methyl bromide and ethylene oxide. Under the consideration of known elimination kinetics and the individual smoking status (biomonitored with nicotine metabolite cotinine and tobacco specific hemoglobin adduct: N-(2 cyan ethyl) valines, CEV), the data allow theoretical extrapolation to the initial protein adduct concentrations at the time of the accident (the MEV/CEV levels were from 1,616 pmol/g globin to 1,880 pmol/g globin and HEV/CEV levels from 1,407 pmol/g globin to 5,049 pmol/g globin, and correlated with inhaled 0.4-1.5 ppm ethylene oxide. These integrated, extrapolated internal doses, calculated on the basis of biological exposure equivalents, confirmed the clinical diagnosis for three patients, showing severe intoxication symptoms. Both, cmtDNA and 8-OHdG, as non-specific biomarkers of toxic effects, were elevated in four patients.ConclusionThe cases reported here, stress the importance of a suitable risk assessment and control measures. We put emphasis on the necessity of human biomonitoring guidelines and the urgency for the relevant limit values.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Kloth et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.