Biomonitoring of occupational exposure to styrene in a plastics lamination plant

Abstract A comprehensive approach to biological monitoring of 44 workers occupationally exposed to styrene in a hand lamination plant was performed by using several end-points: styrene in workplace air, styrene in exhaled air, styrene in blood, DNA strand breaks (SBs) and oxidised bases in mononuclear leukocytes, chromosomal aberrations in lymphocytes, immune parameters and genotyping of polymorphic genes of some xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes ( CYP 1A1 , EPHX , GSTM1 and GSTP1 ). We found a significantly higher number of DNA SBs, measured by a modified comet assay, in mononuclear leukocytes of the styrene-exposed workers compared with results from 19 unexposed controls ( P P r =0.545). The styrene-exposed workers also showed a significantly increased frequency of chromosomal aberrations ( P P P =0.0001 for low-exposed group). The proliferative response of T-lymphocytes stimulated with concanavalin A was significantly suppressed in people exposed to styrene ( P P P