Evaluating the Use of Silicone Wristbands To Measure Personal Exposure to Brominated Flame Retardants

Abstract

Biomarkers remain the gold standard for assessing chemical exposure. However, silicone wristbands may provide some added benefits for characterizing personal exposures compared to single biomarker measurements, such as decreased costs, noninvasive sampling, and increased ease of analysis. Previously, we validated their use in characterizing exposure to organophosphate flame retardants (PFRs). However, it is unclear whether these results would extend to chemicals like polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which biomagnify and have longer half-lives than PFRs in the body. This study sought to determine if accumulation of PBDEs on wristbands was correlated to serum biomarkers. Adult participants ( n = 30) provided serum samples and wore wristbands for 7 days. PBDEs and 6 novel brominated flame retardants (BFRs) were measured on wristbands, and serum samples were analyzed for PBDE biomarkers. Like most PBDE congeners, 5 of 6 novel BFRs were frequently detected on wristbands (≥90% of bands). In particular, decabromodiphenyl ethane (DBDPE) was detected in all wristbands in this study and was significantly correlated with BDE-209, suggesting a similar source and exposure pathway. Wristband levels of BDE-47, -99, -100, and -153 were significantly and positively associated with respective serum biomarkers ( r_s = 0.39-0.57, p < 0.05). This study demonstrates that silicone wristbands can accurately detect personal PBDE exposures.

Figure 1.

Associations between wristbands and serum biomarkers for BDE-47 and BDE-153.

Figure 2.

Multiplicative change (10^β) and 95% confidence intervals in serum biomarkers based on the BDE compounds on wristbands categorized by tertiles. The low category for each congener served as the reference. P-values describe the p for trend.

Figure 3.

Concentrations of 15 compounds measured on the wristbands per band per day based on log K_OA of the compound. Each individual wristband is plotted in gray with the geometric mean plotted in black. Geometric means of BDE congeners are demarcated by diamonds with all other FRs are circles. The Spearman correlation coefficient was calculated from the geometric means and log K_OA values.