Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on July 14, 2009
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2009 53(6):551-560; doi:10.1093/annhyg/mep041
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Editor's Choice
Investigation of PAH Biomarkers in the Urine of Workers Exposed to Hot Asphalt
1 Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
2 Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
3 Exposure, Epidemiology and Risk Program, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
4 Department of Biostatistics, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
5 Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7356, USA
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1-510-642-2355; fax:+1-510-642-0427; e-mail: srappaport{at}berkeley.edu
Airborne emissions from hot asphalt contain mixtures of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), including several carcinogens. We investigated urinary biomarkers of three PAHs, namely naphthalene (Nap), phenanthrene (Phe), and pyrene (Pyr) in 20 road-paving workers exposed to hot asphalt and in 6 road milling workers who were not using hot asphalt (reference group). Our analysis included baseline urine samples as well as postshift, bedtime, and morning samples collected over three consecutive days. We measured unmetabolized Nap (U-Nap) and Phe (U-Phe) as well as the monohydroxylated metabolites of Nap (OH-Nap), Phe (OH-Phe), and Pyr (OH-Pyr) in each urine sample. In baseline samples, no significant differences in biomarker levels were observed between pavers and millers, suggesting similar background exposures. In postshift, bedtime, and morning urine samples, the high pairwise correlations observed between levels of all biomarkers suggest common exposure sources. Among pavers, levels of all biomarkers were significantly elevated in postshift samples, indicating rapid uptake and elimination of PAHs following exposure to hot asphalt (biomarker levels were not elevated among millers). Results from linear mixed-effects models of levels of U-Nap, U-Phe, OH-Phe, and OH-Pyr across pavers showed significant effects of work assignments with roller operators having lower biomarker levels than the other workers. However, no work-related effect was observed for levels of OH-Nap, apparently due to the influence of cigarette smoking. Biological half-lives, estimated from regression coefficients for time among pavers, were 8 h for U-Phe, 10 h for U-Nap, 13 h for OH-Phe and OH-Pyr, and 26 h for OH-Nap. These results support the use of U-Nap, U-Phe, OH-Phe, and OH-Pyr, but probably not OH-Nap, as short-term biomarkers of exposure to PAHs emanating from hot asphalt.
Keywords: asphalt • biomarker • exposure • PAH • urine
Received November 5, 2008; in final form May 6, 2009