On-site measurement of blood-lead concentrations using field-portable electroanalysis.
Authors
Taylor-L; Jones-RL; Ashley-K
Source
Appl Occup Environ Hyg 2002 Dec; 17(12):818-821
Abstract
The health effects of lead exposure are well documented. Lead can be inhaled into the lungs, absorbed through the skin, or ingested from contaminated hands, food, or cigarettes. Because air samples are not a surrogate for biological monitoring, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations mandate that employees' blood-lead levels be tested regularly. The portable ASV instrument was evaluated using worker populations, and observed results were withing the blood lead range of 1.4ug/dL to 42.0 ug/dL (see figures 1 and 2). The mean difference between the results of the field instrument and those of the laboratory analysis were less than 1 ug/dL. Give that treatment options would not be dramatically altered by a change in the blood-lead of <+_ug/dL, the mean difference between the two analytical methods holds very little clinical significance. It is unclear why the portable ASV instrument occasionally overestimates the blood-leads level by greater than +-11 ug/dL. In this data set, 9 out of 10 data points outside two standard deviations from the mean resulted in an overestimation of the true blood-lead level. Additional evaluation of the portable ASL device is underway. Occupational health professionals should evaluate the occurance of these values when determining if the ASV instrument is appropriate for thier applications.
Keywords
Lead-compounds; Lead-fumes; Lead-poisoning; Lung-disorders; Air-samples; Blood-tests; Exposure-levels; Respirable-dust; Sampling-methods; Sampling-equipment
Contact
CDC/NIOSH, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Mail Stop R-14, Cincinnati, OH 45226-1998, USA
Document Type
Journal Article
NIOSH Division
DSHEFS; DART
Priority Area
Research Tools and Approaches: Exposure Assessment Methods
Source Name
Applied Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
