Field evaluation of a portable blood lead analyzer in workers living at a high altitude: a follow-up investigation.
Authors
Taylor L; Ashley K; Jones R; Deddens J
Source
American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition, May 8-13, 2004, Atlanta, Georgia. Fairfax, VA: American Industrial Hygiene Association, 2004 May; :88
This study further evaluated an electroanalytical field-portable instrument which rapidly analyzes venous blood lead levels in individuals. The instrument, which employs anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) to measure lead in blood, was used on blood samples from an Andean worker population (almost entirely male) at an elevation of approximately 3800 meters in Peru. The portable ASV instrument was evaluated utilizing paired samples from 243 employee volunteers. Each worker donated two venous blood samples, one of which was analyzed by the ASV device, and the other by a reference analytical method, graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS). Hemoglobin levels of the workers' blood samples were also measured. According to the GFAAS results, the mean blood lead concentration measured was 46( +/- 16) ug/dL; this was significantly greater than the mean ASV measurement of 32( +/- 11) ug/dL (paired t-test; p<0.0001). The accuracy of the ASV estimation decreased as the measured blood lead concentration increased. The mean hemoglobin concentration in this Andean worker cohort was 17.3 g/dL, which contrasts with the mean hemoglobin level of 15.3 g/dL in U.S. males living near sea level. Hemoglobin levels were unrelated to blood lead concentrations (r2 = 0.00905; p = 0.143). The ASV evaluation results from this investigation, which was carried out at a very high elevation, were significantly different from the previous study, which was conducted near sea level. The exact causes for the discrepancies between the portable ASV results from the two studies are unclear, but are thought to be related to differences in blood chemistry between the Midwestern United States and Peruvian Andes worker cohorts. Analytical results from portable ASV measurement of blood lead levels in extremely high-altitude populations should be treated with caution.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.