Styrene in adipose tissue of nonoccupationally exposed persons

Given a styrene tissue/blood partition coefficient of ca. 39 and a relatively low perfusion rate of ca. 0.03 ml/min-g tissue, adipose tissue provides a useful physiologically damped integrative measure of environmental exposure. Styrene in the adipose tissue of nonoccupationally exposed individuals was measured for the first time. Tissue samples obtained from elective surgery patients and postmortem donors were analyzed by capillary gas chromatography and found to contain 1.12 +/- 1.06 (mean +/- SD) ppm styrene. Using these measured tissue levels and an apparent clearance of styrene (defined as the ratio of blood clearance to adipose tissue/blood partition coefficient), environmental intake of styrene was estimated to be 2.23 mg/hr, corresponding to an inhaled concentration of 1.96 mg/m3 (476 ppb). This value is two to three orders of magnitude higher than typical breathing zone air measurements, indicating additional undiscovered sources of styrene exposure.