Relationships between air and urinary concentrations of béryllium in Cu-foundry, Al- foundry and Al-smelter workers

Beryllium occurrence in occupational areas is a major concern as low-level exposure could lead to development of beryllium sensitization (BeS) and of a chronic beryllium disease (CBD), a long latency granulomatous disorder that primarily affects lungs. To efficiently protect workers exposed to beryllium, a diminution of workplace exposure threshold limit values was recommended from 2 to 0.05 µg/m3 by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) and to 0.01 µg/m3 by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES). This implies use of reliable and sensitive analytical methods for beryllium exposure assessment.
In this study, urinary concentrations of beryllium were investigated as a potential tool for exposure monitoring in three factories: a copper-beryllium (CuBe) alloy foundry, an aluminium-beryllium (AlBe) alloy foundry, and an aluminium smelter. Personal air samples were collected each working day for several days. All urine specimens (all the mictions at the workplace and home) were collected during the same period, resting days included. In addition particle size distribution and solubility of beryllium were determined for specific activities. Skin sampling was also performed occasionally before and after working day.
Ranges of beryllium urinary (BeU) and atmospheric (BeA) concentrations were different between workplaces. Although a statistically significant relationship at the level of confidence of 95.0 %.between BeU and BeA (ln-ln scale, R² = 0.43) was found, the model after logarithmic transformation was not adequate to describe the observed data (Figure 1). No alternative model could explain the data. In first approach, it is thus obvious that the dosage of the urinary beryllium cannot be used as marker of beryllium exposure. In details, some variations in urinary levels could be explained by others parameter, such as skin exposures, beryllium solubility, as well as individual factors such as hygiene and smoking habit.