Exposure to low-toxicity dusts, which have previously been viewed as 'nuisance dusts', can cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or other nonmalignant respiratory disease. In Britain, the 'de facto' airborne exposure limits for these dusts have remained unchanged for >30 years; currently, they are 10mg m(-3) for inhalable dust and 4mg m(-3) for respirable dust. During this time, exposures...

Endovascular surgical neuroradiologists can receive a substantial amount of occupational radiation exposure. We evaluated the amount of radiation exposure that results from the practice of performing hand injections during digital subtraction angiography (DSA). The primary operator can significantly decrease the radiation dose by leaving the room for DSA procedures. However, the total radiation...

Studies of workers exposed to hydrocarbon solvents are reviewed in order to address the question, 'Does long-term human exposure to hydrocarbon solvents at concentrations around occupational exposure limits result in clinically important neurobehavioural effects?' Studies selected evaluated exposure-response (E-R) trends with some control of potential confounders. Tests of neurobehavioural perf...

Exposure to metals at workplaces is well known and in many cases occupational studies led to an adoption of limit values. For airborne concentrations of substances as metals refer to the "Maximaleo Arbeitsplatz-Konzentration" (MAK) in Germany or the "Threshold Limit Value" (TLV) in USA. Biological monitoring consists of an assessment of overall exposure to chemicals at the workplace and in the ...

We measured the quartz content of 20 bulk settled dust and 200 respirable dust samples in a cross-sectional dust exposure assessment that is part of an epidemiological study to ascertain the risk of nonmalignant respiratory diseases among Zambian copper miners. Dust samples were collected from the copper mines of Mopani Copper Mine plc (Mufulira and Nkana Mines). Analytical measurements employe...