[Arsenic and respiratory neoplasms, risks, prevention].

Arsine and in general airborne arsenic compounds show the main cancer promoting characteristics. Protection of employees is therefore a question of ventilation speed and arsenic determination in ambient air and, preservated with EDTA, in urine. Meanwhile, the excess of respiratory cancers alone will continue to increase 5% for each microgram of arsenic present per m3 of air breathed in the work area, or excreted in every one-third liter of urine. Eighteen years after occupational lung cancer due to arsenic and arsenic compounds has been recognised in Japan, the presently accepted TLV of arsine, 200 micrograms/m3, unchanged since 1950, thus corresponds to an excess mortality of 1000%.