Biological monitoring for exposure assessment of phthalatesby Korean firefighters at the fire site

Abstract

[BACKGROUND AND AIM]The phthalates metabolites in urine for exposed phthalates were evaluated for firefighters who participated in the actual fire suppression to determine whether firefighters were exposed to hazardous chemicals, which is the basic data on health risk of firefighters [METHODS]The results of comparing the concentration of metabolites of phthalates immediately after fire suppression and after 3 weeks of fire suppression in spot urine. [RESULTS]The concentration of Mono-n-butyl phthalate(MnBP), Mono-benzyl phthalate(MBzP), and total phthalates(Σphthalates) increased significantly immediately after fire suppression than after 3 weeks of suppression. In case of adjusted for creatinine, the concentration of MnBP, MBzP and Σphthalates were equally increased. There was a statistically significant difference in the geometric mean concentration(GM) of firefighters who performed fire suppression tasks as 55.59㎍/g as Cr and 29.69㎍/g as Cr for other tasks. The GM concentration of firefighters who were active within 50m from the fire site was 44.80㎍/g as Cr, and when it fell over 50m, there was a difference of 20.47㎍/g as Cr. The GM concentration of firefighters with subjective symptoms within 7 days after extinguishing the fire was 61.68㎍/g as Cr and without symptoms was 31.62㎍/g as Cr, which was different. [CONCLUSIONS]This study confirmed that fire fighters are exposed to various phthalates during the firefighting process. [KEYWORDS]Fire fighter, Phthalate metabolites