Assessment of exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons inpreschool children: Levels and impact of preschool indoor air onexcretion of main urinary monohydroxyl metabolites

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Marta
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Slezakova, Klara, Delerue-Matos, Cristina, Pereira, Maria do Carmo, Morais, Simone
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/9425
• topic: Children exposure; Diagnostic ratios; Indoor/outdoor ratios; Monitoring and biomonitoring; Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)

The present work aimed to assess exposure of preschool children to polycyclic aromatic hydrocar-bons (PAHs) by environmental monitoring (eighteen compounds in air) and biomonitoring (six urinary biomarkers of exposure (OH-PAHs)). The impact of preschool indoor air on excretion of urinary mono-hydroxyl metabolites was also evaluated. Gaseous and particulate-bound PAHs were simultaneously collected indoors and outdoors in two Portuguese preschools. PAHs and OH-PAHs were quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence and photodiode array detection. Total air (gaseous + total suspended particles) levels of PAHs (PAHs) were higher indoors than outdoors. Gaseous phase (composed by ≥98% of 2–3 rings compounds) and particulate-bound PAHs (90–99% of 5–6 rings) accounted for 93–95% and 5–7% of PAHs in indoor air, respectively. Total (including probable/possible) carcinogenic PAHs represented 26–45% of PAHs; naphthalene and dibenz[a,h]anthracene were the strongest contributors. A similar distribution profile was observed between airborne PAHs and uri-nary OH-PAHs. Urinary 1-hydroxynaphthalene + 1-hydroxyacenaphthene represented more than 78%of OH-PAHs, being followed by 2-hydroxyfluorene, 1-hydroxypyrene, and 1-hydroxyphenanthrene. 3-hydroxybenzo[a]pyrene (PAH biomarker of carcinogenicity) was not detected. Results suggest that children had preschool indoor air as their major exposure source of naphthalene and acenaphthene, while no conclusion was reached regarding fluorene, phenanthrene and pyrene.