Guidance values for the biomonitoring of occupational exposure. State of the art

Biomonitoring was developed for the assessment of the health risks from exposure to chemicals at work, and the approaches and concepts of biomonitoring are derived from such exposures. At present, biomonitoring is increasingly used also to assess exposure from the environment. Biomonitoring and assessment of external exposure are complementing activities, where the exposure assessments are much more widely applied, especially when the number of chemicals concerned is considered; environmental analysis also offers the distinct advantage of speciation analysis--which is very poorly developed for biomonitoring. Biomonitoring on the other hand provides information on exposure from all sources, and via all absorption routes, and considers also accumulation of the chemical in the body. Bio monitoring using exposure biomarkers thus consider interindividual differences in the absorption, while use of effec biomarkers ideally also considers interindividual differences in sensitivity. Few effect biomarkers, however, have been validated. The major challenges of biomonitoring are the development of monitoring methods, which are inexpensive enough to be applied at a frequency that makes possible meaningful biomonitoring of chemicals with a short half-time; development of exposure biomarker guidance values specific to individual species of different metals; ex pansion of the repertoire of validated effect biomarkers; and validation and application to effect monitoring of the omic technologies. Another major challenge is a reconsideration of the basis of biomonitoring action limits to reflec the change in the work place: Biomonitoring should be adapted to assist in the generation of a healthy workplace which is capable of attracting workers, and assist them to perform their work effectively--rather than just to guarantee absence of serious health effects.