Module 3: Toxicology - Section 4: Biological Monitoring
TOX 4.4: Lecture: Biological Monitoring and Biological Effect Monitoring - (Continued)
 

EXAMPLE OF BIOLOGICAL MONITORING - INORGANIC LEAD:

  1. Legislated schedule including medical removal. (See OHSA- Regulations: Lead Regulations, 2001.)
  2. Four compartment kinetics: blood, soft tissues, trabecular bone, cortical bone.
  3. Interpretation of a given blood lead is different in new as vs long service workers.
  4. Interlaboratory differences may be substantial (See the graph).

EXAMPLE OF BIOLOGICAL EFFECT MONITORING:

  1. Use individual baseline as reference!
  2. Normal variation, i.e. in absence of exposure: 10-15%.
  3. 2-3 month recovery, i.e. return to baseline in absence of exposure.

BIOLOGICAL EFFECT MONITORING OF EXPOSURE TO POSSIBLE CARCINOGENS:

These tests are not used routinely but rather in toxicologic or epidemiologic research.

  1. Urinary mutagens (Ames test)
  2. Haemoglobin and DNA-adducts e.g. benzo(a)pyrene
    (Adduct = chemical bond)
  3. Chromosomal abnormalities ("clastogenic"),
    e.g. for ethylene oxide

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Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health (DOH) - Modules 3 – 5: Occupational Medicine & Toxicology by Prof Rodney Ehrlich & Prof Mohamed Jeebhay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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