Occupational cadmium exposureinjigsolderers

Thecadmiumbodyburden, blood andurine cadmiumconcentrations, andrenal func- tion werestudied ina group of53cadmium solderers. Theresults showed raised blood andurine cadmium concentrations andraised cadmium bodyburden inall workers (31) with more thanfive yearsexposure,with27having urine cadmium concentrations inexcessoftheproposed biological threshold of10nmol/mmol creatinine. Renaltubular dysfunction was foundin17ofthesubjects with more thanfive yearsexposureandinone this was associated withglomerular dysfunction. These dataindicate that cadmium bodyburden andfrequency oftubular dysfunction inendusers ofcadmium may beashigh asthose found insmelters orproduction workers. Subjects withtubular dysfunction didnotshowgreatly increased urine cadmium concentrations compared withthose without dysfunction, supporting a previous suggestion that tubular dysfunction occursbefore the washoutofcadmiumfromthekidney. Atthetimeofour study, cadmium exposurestopped as cadmium free soldering rods wereintroduced. Repeat urine samples from19subjects, one totwo yearsafter exposureendedindicated that there was no further increase inthelevel ofexcretion of lowmolecular weight proteins, perhaps indicating that thetubular proteinuria doesnotincrease or more severerenal dysfunction develop without continuous exposure.