Avaliação dos indicadores biológicos de exposição aos metais em trabalhadores de fundições / Evaluation of biological indicators of exposure to metals in foundry workers

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

07/12/2004

RESUMO

The sanitary metal production is a sector in constant development in Brazil. This industrial process involves stages such as evaporation, condensation and oxidation of metals, therefore allowing the formation of metallic fumes in some types of industry, and also in foundries. The contaminated environment can induce, in the workers, biochemical alterations and, in some circumstances, occupational diseases. In the sanitary metal sector, alloys are used in which predominate the metals zinc and copper, being lead, cadmium, manganese and nickel, metals that can be found in the form of impurities. According to Brazilian legislation\ s (Ministry of Work) only lead in blood and cadmium in urine are regulated as biological monitoring of exposure. In the present study, methods based on graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry and zeeman background correction were validated for quantification of Pb-B, Cd-U, Mn-U and Ni-U, and 273 male individuais (178 exposed group and 95 non exposed - control group), working in 8 sanitary metal foundries, in Loanda, Paraná, a state located in the south of Brazil, were evaluated. The levels of Pb-B were higher than the international permissible limit. Relatively low concentrations were found for the other evaluated metals: Cd-U, Mn-U and Ni-U, thus lead can be considered, in this case, the main problem, associated with metallic fumes. Corrective measures in the work environment were proposed and implemented, thus the four metais were evaluated in two distinct situations (biological determinations were done before and after the modifications). The results of the second evaluation showed reductions those were statistically significant. The means obtained in the two determinations were 42,74µg/dL and 26,54µg/dL for Pb-B; 0,269 and 0,015µg/g creatinine for Cd-U; 1,94 and 0,39µg/g creatinine for Mn-U and 1,82 and 0,68µg/g creatinine for Ni-U, with leveis of significance (p) <0,05, thus evidencing the importance of the adequacy of the work environment in the guarantee of safe exposures for the workers.

ASSUNTO(S)

biological monitoring exposição ocupacional foundries fundições metais (toxicidade) metals monitorização biológica occupational exposure occupational toxicology toxicologia ocupacional

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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