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KMID : 0382420010270030071
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Korean Journal of Environmental Health Society
2001 Volume.27 No. 3 p.71 ~ p.80
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Patterns of Mercury Concentrations in Blood and Urine After High Mercury Exposure
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Yoon Chung-Sik
Yim Sang-Hyuk
Ha Kwon-Chul
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Abstract
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Blood and urine mercury level of three workers were monitored during 60∼80 days after high exposure to mercury at the silver refining plant. Mercury was used to form silver-mercury amalgam from plating sludge. Workers were exposed to mercury about 70 days at the several processes, such as hand-held weaving, vibration table, and heating from the furnace. Mercury was analysed by atomic absorption spectroscopy-vapor generation technique. Recovery from the biological sample was 95.51 % and pooled standard deviation was 0.033.
At the time of study, there was no work at the workplace. So, airborne mercury concentration was measured with area sampling 5 days after the work, ranged from 0.1459 to 1.2351 mg/㎥(Arithmatic mean 0.4711 mg/㎥, Geometric mean 0.3566 mg/㎥) at the inside of the plant, that is far above the ACGIH´s TLV(0.025 mg/㎥) and ranged from 0.0073 to 0.0330 mg/㎥ at the outdoor.
Blood mercury levels at the beginning of the monitoring were 4∼14 times greater than the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists Biological Exposure Index(ACGIH BEI, 15 ug/L). Blood mercury levels were decreased logarithmically, that is, rapidly at the high level and slowly at the low level but sustained above the level of the ACGIH BEI 60∼80 days after the work.
Urine mercury levels at the beginning of the monitoring were 8-16 times greater than the ACGIH BEI(35 ug/g creatinine). Urine mercury levels were decreased logarithmically, but correlation between urine level and off-days were lower than those of blood. Decreasing pattern of blood mercury levels were little affected than that of urine levels when the chelating agent, D-penicillamine, was administered.
There was correlation between blood mercury level and urine mercury level(0.81∼0.83) but it didn´t mean that the highest blood mercury level corresponded the highest urine mercury level. In our study, Case I always shows the highest level in urine but case 3 always shows the highest level in blood.
Creatinine correction represented better correlations between urine mercury levels and blood levels, and between urine levels and off-days rather than by urine volume. Spot urine sampling had a wide variation than that of whole day urine sampling. So, We recommend spot urine sampling for screening and whole day urine sampling for exact diagnosis.
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