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Biomedical subjects

E Capodaglio

Publications and source records attributed to E Capodaglio.

51 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Biological monitoring of occupational exposure to enflurane (ethrane) in operating room personnel.

Biological monitoring of occupational exposure to enflurane (ethrane) can be achieved by measuring concentrations of inorganic fluorides in the blood and urine and of enflurane in alveolar air and venous blood. Measurement of these concentrations, however, has limitations. Another method for monitoring exposure to enflurane is to measure its concentration in urine throughout the period of exposure. In this study, we measured the environmental and urinary concentrations of enflurane. Enflurane in the ambient atmosphere was determined in 18 operating theaters of eight hospitals in Italy. Ambient air concentrations exceeded the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-recommended time-weighted average exposure level of 1 ppm (median: 1.31 ppm). Enflurane was detected in urine of 159 exposed subjects (anesthetists, surgeons, and nurses). A significant correlation was found between enflurane concentration in urine produced during the shift and environmental concentration (r = 0.77, p = .0001). The results showed that urinary enflurane concentration can be used as an appropriate biological exposure index. The biological values proposed are 153 micrograms/l, corresponding to 75 ppm of environmental exposure; 22 micrograms/l, corresponding to 10 ppm of environmental exposure; and 3.5 micrograms/l, corresponding to 1 ppm of environmental exposure. The proposed values can be regarded as time-weighted average samples, reflecting exposure for a 4-h period.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Relationship of environmental levels, respiratory absorption and urinary concentrations of various solvents: effects of work load].

The physical demand in the workplaces can be different depending on each specific job. This involves that workers exposed to the same environmental level of an airborne can absorb different amounts of it depending on their pulmonary ventilation. Starting from the relationship between the uptake (U) and the urinary concentration (Cu) of 6 solvents (Acetone, Styrene, Xylenes, Toluene, Methylchloroform, Tetrachloroethylene) and from the equation expressing their lung uptake the expected values of a biological index after a given time of exposure can be derived. Such values are a function not only of the environmental levels of exposure (CI) but also of the pulmonary ventilation (V) (V--dependent solvents) and of the retention index (R) (V--R--dependent solvents).

Air Pollutants, Occupational↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Proposal of the biological monitoring of inhalation anesthetics].

The long-term occupational exposure to inhalation anaesthetics might represent a health hazard; mainly it may have an adverse effect on the reproductive outcome. Nitrous oxide is the anaesthetic employed in the largest amount during general anaesthesia and it can be used as an indicator of occupational exposure to all the components the mixture; but if the pattern of dispersion of them (when leaking into the operating theater) are not the same, two indicators should be used: N2O (gas) + another component the mixture (vapour). Our results concern practically 5 points: --Analysis of N2O by means of a diffusive personal sampler (comparison with a conventional sampling method) --Analysis of N2O in urine collected after 4 hours of exposure during routine anaesthetic work (headspace method) --Comparison of environmental and biological data concerning N2O --Comparison of environmental and biological data concerning a component of the anaesthetic mixture, forane --Proposal of biological exposure indices for nitrous oxide and forane. A close relationship between air and urine was found in 363 subjects occupationally exposed to N2O and 45 subjects exposed to forane (r: 0.95 and 0.90 respectively). On the basis of such a relationship the biological exposure index for N2O corresponding to an ambient concentration of 100 ppm (European limit) turned out to be 55 micrograms/L; the ones for forane corresponding to ambient concentrations of 2 or 10 ppm are respectively 3.4 or 14.5 micrograms/L (urinary concentrations in samples collected after 4 hours of exposure).

Anesthetics↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Urinary elimination of p-dichlorobenzene (p-DCB) and weighted exposure concentration.

The aim of the present work is to determine p-DCB concentration in the urine of exposed workers and to verify a possible correlation with the environmental exposure. The authors studied four subjects exposed to different p-DCB environmental concentrations during a working week. The measurement of the substances was performed by means of a Hewlett-Packard 5880 A gas-chromatograph supplied with a Hewlett-Packard 5970 A Mass Selective Detector. The analysis was performed by a head space method (after determining the urine/air partition coefficient (lambda) by the multiple phase equilibration method). The lambda value (urine/air) of p-DCB is 10.8. The Authors found a significant relationship between the difference of p-DCB urinary concentration at the beginning and end of a daily work delta Cu (microgram/l) and the p-DCB environmental concentration C-I (mg/m3) (r = 0.64) (P less than 0.01); delta Cu = 0,48C-I + 15.61. We found that with an environmental exposure of 44.7 mg/m3 median value (geometrical deviation 1.15) there is an increase of p-DCB concentration in the urine of workers during the working week. For a daily environmental exposure of 450 mg/m3 (ACGIH TLV, 1984), we think that it is possible to propose a Biological Exposure Index (B.E.I.) of 250 micrograms/l as difference between beginning and end of a daily work.

Air Pollutants, Occupational↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Environmental and biological monitoring of subjects occupationally exposed to precious metals (gold lost-wax casting)].

Environmental monitoring during lost wax casting in jewelry handicrafts was performed for gold, silver, zinc and copper by means of personal samplers and ICP-AAS techniques were used for determining airborne metals. Personal sampling was prolonged for a working week by continuous monitoring during 8 hours shifts, replacing the membrane filter every 2 hours, in 6 workers; in the same workers urine samples were collected during the week and levels of Au, Ag, Zn and Cu were measured by ETA-AAS. During casting process Ag air concentrations ranged 0.27-0.6 mg/m3 while mean levels of Au, Cu, and Zn were 0.028 0.030 and 0.056 mg/m3 respectively. Urinary excretion of Ag (I) determined by solvent extraction and separation by liquid anion exchanger proved very high, after 24-36 h from the casting processes.

Adult↗