Biomonitoring and occupational medicine. Possibilities and limitations

In the prevention of occupational diseases, biological monitoring has become very important. Today the individual level of exposure to many toxic substances can be assessed by routinely monitoring their concentrations in blood and urine. The adoption of effective quality control procedures allows reliable analytical results down to the ppt range to be obtained. Limit values such as the biological tolerance values for occupational exposure (BAT) from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany and the biological exposure indices (BEI) from the US American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) help to interpret the analytical results of biological monitoring. In spite of numerous advancements there are some gaps in the field of biological monitoring. Some groups of substances, such as pesticides, are still beyond the possibilities of biological monitoring. With regard to biological and biochemical effect monitoring, large gaps have to be filled and considerable research is needed. The number of limit values evaluated till now is still too small. Politics, however, seems to be the most serious limitation for biological monitoring.