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. 2023 Feb 15:375:59-68.
doi: 10.1016/j.toxlet.2022.12.009. Epub 2022 Dec 16.

HBM4EU chromates study - the measurement of hexavalent and trivalent chromium in exhaled breath condensate samples from occupationally exposed workers across Europe

Elizabeth Leese  1 , Kate Jones  2 , Beatrice Bocca  3 , Radia Bousoumah  4 , Argelia Castaño  5 , Karen S Galea  6 , Ivo Iavicoli  7 , Marta Esteban López  5 , Veruscka Leso  7 , Sophie Ndaw  4 , Simo P Porras  8 , Flavia Ruggieri  3 , Paul T J Scheepers  9 , Tiina Santonen  8 ; HBM4EU chromates study team
Collaborators, Affiliations

HBM4EU chromates study - the measurement of hexavalent and trivalent chromium in exhaled breath condensate samples from occupationally exposed workers across Europe

Elizabeth Leese et al. Toxicol Lett. .

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the practicability of exhaled breath condensate (EBC) as a biological matrix to detect and measure hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) and trivalent chromium (Cr(III)) in workers occupationally exposed to Cr(VI). EBC samples were collected from workers in France, Finland, Italy, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom from three different target activities: chrome platers, stainless steel welders and surface treatment workers. Pre and post working week EBC samples were collected from 177 exposed workers and 98 unexposed workers (control group). Hyphenated chromatography systems with inductively coupled plasma - mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) were for the analysis. The results showed that the occupationally exposed workers had significantly higher levels of Cr(VI) and Cr(III) than the control group. Chrome platers exhibited the highest Cr(VI) levels in their EBC samples, with a significant increase from their pre to post samples for both Cr(VI) and Cr(III). A significant difference was also found between pre and post EBC samples for Cr(III) in welders. This study has shown that EBC has the potential to be a valid, non-invasive biological matrix to assess occupational exposure to Cr(VI) and Cr(III) for biological monitoring assessment, with the ability to detect low level inhalation exposures.

Keywords: Chrome platers; Chromium speciation; EBC; Human biomonitoring; Welders.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

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Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Scatter plots in µg/L from pre working week (Pre W-Wk) to post working week (Post W-Wk) for (A) Cr(VI) and (B) Cr(III) in EBC for occupationally exposed workers from each target group and the control group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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