Lead and Cadmium (Pb, Cd) Levels Determination in the Blood of the Gasoline Station Workers

Abstract

The inhalation of hazardous fumes from lead containing gasoline in the workplace has become a major public health concern. These gases include extremely dangerous poisons that can induce aberrant changes in the functioning of a variety of essential organs. The current study aimed to estimate the concentration of blood lead level (BLLs) and blood cadmium level in male working gasoline station and compared with healthy people. An atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS) was used to measure cadmium and lead levels in the blood. The findings of this investigation revealed that there was significant increase in age (P-value = 0.002), mean age of worker station (32.0 ± 11.99) while in the control group (22.85 ± 2.18), the result of blood lead level shown (1.92 ±1.54) in gasoline station while in the control group (1.63 ±0.04) no significant differences was observed (P-value = 0.238). The main of blood cadmium level was 0.005 ±0.0069 in the gasoline station while in the control group (0.069 ±0.011) no significant differences were observed (P- value = 0.5), the smokers (n = 13) has (P > 0.426) mean BLL (21.60 ± 12.88 μg/dL), while non-smoking workers (n = 8) the BLL mean was 15.52 ± 6.80 μg/dL. The results also show that there is a correlation between age and blood lead level while no correlation was observed in blood cadmium level.